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Ohio: Republican Gov. Vetoes Bill That Would Ban Transgender Treatments for Minors

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Going against his party’s general stance on sex change treatments for minors, Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced Friday that he has vetoed a GOP-introduced bill that would have banned hormonal and surgical sex change medical interventions for minors, saying the government should not take the place of parents in deciding on transgender treatments CBS News reports.

Titled the SAFE Act, House Bill 68 was passed by both of Ohio’s legislative chambers last month, CBS News said. In addition to prohibiting transgender medical treatments for minors, the SAFE Act would have barred biologically male transgender student athletes from playing in girls’ and women’s sports, both in K-12 schools and in colleges and universities.

Angering fellow Republicans, DeWine said he was blocking the bill after conducting a “fact finding mission” and talking to families and physicians. “Were I to sign House Bill 68, or were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is best for a child than the two people who know that child the best — the parents,” DeWine said in a statement announcing his veto.

“The decisions that parents are making are not easy decisions,” DeWine said. “What we find in life, sadly, is that many times we are making decisions and neither alternative is sort of what we’d want, but we have to make a decision. And I just felt that there’s no one better than the parents to make those decisions.”

A three-fifths vote of the members of both the Ohio House and Senate is necessary to override a governor’s veto, CBS News noted. It is not yet clear if this can be achieved.