Ohio House Republicans begin review of transgender bathroom bill

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A hearing on legislation dictating which bathroom transgender students must use opened with claims that gender affirming care will “destroy” children’s bones and “damage” their brains.

It closed with an anecdote, for which sponsoring Rep. Beth Lear, a Galena Republican, refused to provide further detail, alleging that a child in Ohio was the victim of a gang rape by an athletic team, and unspecified officials did nothing but “encourage” the child to transition and become a male.

Wednesday’s committee hearing was the first for House Bill 183, legislation introduced by about 20 House Republicans this summer that would prohibit transgender students from using school bathrooms or locker rooms that align with their assumed gender identity. It would apply in public K-12 schools and colleges. The hearing featured testimony only from the bill’s legislative sponsors, not outside opponents or proponents, which typically come later.

This comes on the heels of similar legislation prohibiting transgender students from competing in women’s sports, or blocking physicians from prescribing various gender affirming treatments to transgender minors.

Rep. Adam Bird, a New Richmond Republican who is the lead sponsor along with Lear, said the legislation will “eliminate difficult situations for school leaders” and prevent what he said were instances of girls assaulted in locker rooms by “biological males.”

Democrats on the committee signaled opposition, peppering the sponsors with questions about whether the bill would worsen bullying or discrimination against transgender children or why lawmakers should wade into such a polemic issue.

Under questioning from state Rep. Beth Liston, a Columbus-area physician and House Democrat who corrected Lear’s testimony on the number of chromosomes in the human body and questioned other studies she cited, Lear said she knows a minor in Ohio who was raped by members of an athletic team. Lear claims the child, “encouraged” by unspecified adults, transitioned genders because she feared men after the attack.

Lear didn’t return a phone call. Over text messages, she said the incident in question happened in Ohio but she wouldn’t specify where. She declined to say when or identify or in any way categorize the person who she says “encouraged” the child to change genders, citing an interest in protecting the victim’s privacy.

Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to a spokeswoman for Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to ask if the office knew of any incident that matched the description.

Maria Bruno, a lobbyist with the pro-LGBTQ nonprofit Equality Ohio, said she’s not aware of anything in Ohio that fits the fact pattern Lear laid out. That said, Bruno said the tone and nature of Wednesday’s hearing were revealing.

“I think that the testimony and answers to questions focused so specifically on trying to attack the existence of trans people altogether made it clear to us this wasn’t about bathrooms,” Bruno said. “It’s about marginalizing an already very small group of people.”

Jake Zuckerman covers state politics and policy for Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer.

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