Legislation protecting children from transgender experimentation serves as a litmus test for Republicans on the left’s LGBT insanity — and Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine just failed it.
On paper, Ohio appears to be one of the most Republican states in the nation. Not even states controlled by a Republican trifecta and triplex, however, are safe from succumbing to the left’s transgender agenda, thanks to so-called conservative politicians’ acceptance of their dishonest talking points as gospel truth.
Most Ohioans and most Americans say kids with gender dysphoria should not be chemically castrated or surgically mutilated and cross-dressing men should not be able to invade women’s sports teams. But DeWine rejected his constituents’ clear convictions by vetoing Republican legislators’ “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act,” which would have outlawed both.
A three-fifths majority vote from the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly will easily override DeWine’s veto. But that doesn’t erase the governor’s culpability for advancing leftist lies.
DeWine acknowledged that the bill would only affect “a very small number of Ohio’s children” but justified his decision by claiming “this is about protecting human life.”
“Many parents have told me that their child would not have survived, would be dead today if they had not received the treatment they received from one of Ohio’s children’s hospitals. I’ve also been told by those who are now grown adults that but for this care, they would have taken their lives when they were teenagers,” DeWine claimed.
That line alone shows the governor bought into the lie sold by leftist activists touting junk science and unreliable surveys that gender-confused youth will commit suicide unless their parents can be coerced into signing off on drastic transgender experimentation. His attempt to frame the pro-mutilation camp as “reasonable people” further proves his acceptance of the leftist narrative on this issue.
DeWine even tried to frame his rejection of the legislation as a victory for parents’ rights.
“Were [the act] to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government knows what is best medically for a child rather than the two people who love that child the most: the parents,” DeWine wrote in his veto message.
Of course, states have the right to ban abuse, a category that undoubtedly includes chopping off healthy body parts and dosing kids with experimental drugs that cause permanent mental and physical damage including sexual dysfunction, various forms of infertility, heart problems, mental health crises, and even cancer. Children who are sold the lie that they must butcher their bodies to be their true selves often experience harrowing and life-threatening regret. DeWine surely knows this, but proceeded with his veto anyway.
Not only did the bill’s sponsor Rep. Gary Click publicly warn that children are “incapable of providing the informed consent necessary to make those very risky and life-changing decisions,” but former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines, who competed against Lia Thomas, a man swimming in the women’s division, also testified in favor of passing the legislation because it would protect children, girls, and women.
Even if DeWine wasn’t familiar with the case for passing the bill, he recently attended a virtual sit-down with “detransitioner” Chloe Cole, who explained in detail the pain and regret she felt about the surgical and chemical mangling medical personnel promised would sate her gender confusion.
“He knows just how horrific this is to do to children. His decision to continue this… it’s not just a matter of pure incompetence or ignorance,” Cole told Fox News over the weekend.
DeWine still has the better part of three years left in office after he won Ohio voters over for the second time in 2022. His refusal to protect Ohio’s children from the transgender insanity plaguing the nation should disqualify him from ever winning office in a red state again.
