The Ohio Public Health Committee passed the 鈥淪aving Adolescents From Experimentation鈥� Act on Wednesday, and the measure and is currently awaiting a full vote in the House.
The bill would ban gender affirming care for minors in Ohio, as well as ban transgender athletes from competing in athletic events with the gender they identify as.
This bill is one of 557 bills in the United States that seek to limit gender-affirming care for minors, limit access to sports and facilities for transgender people and prevent aspects of legal recognition for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals.
This year also marks a record year for anti-transgender legislation, with 2022 only having a total of 174 bills focusing on the issue.
The drastic increase in these types of bills can partly be attributed to a practice called model legislation, or model bills.
Associated Press journalists Jeff Mcmillan, Kavish Harjai And Kimberlee Kruesi recently conducted an analysis on the anti-transgender bills, and found that many of these bills were similar to Do No Harm鈥檚 model legislation and a 2021 Arkansas bill endorsed as a model by the Family Research Council.
The 鈥淪aving Adolescents From Experimentation鈥� Act in Ohio has several instances of identical phrasing to both Do No Harm鈥檚 model legislation and the 2021 Arkansas bill.
Found in both the Arkansas and Ohio bills is the phrase 鈥淚t is of grave concern to the General Assembly that the medical community is allowing individuals who experience distress at identifying with their biological sex to be subjects of irreversible and drastic non-genital gender reassignment surgery and irreversible, permanently sterilizing genital gender reassignment surgery, despite the lack of studies showing that the benefits of such extreme interventions outweigh the risks.鈥�
Other states share identical bill titles, definitions for biological sex and the claim that those struggling with their gender identity 鈥渙ften have already experienced psychopathology.鈥�
Some states make an attempt to shift some language around in the bills. In Ohio, the phrasing is, 鈥淥nly a tiny percentage of the American population experiences distress at identifying with their biological sex,鈥� but in New Hampshire, the bill states 鈥淥nly a small percentage of the American population experiences distress at identifying with their biological sex.鈥�
Both of the states' phrasing appears in the organization Do No Harm鈥檚 model bill as well. These small differences in phrasing are common among model bills, but some lawmakers are not too concerned with their constituents knowing that their legislation is not original.
, Jeff Mcmillan said that some lawmakers see model bills as a more efficient way to introduce legislation and that others may not realize their bills are model bills. 鈥淚n many cases the sponsors of this legislation aren鈥檛 the ones actually writing it. They may have legislative staffers or legislative writers actually writing the legislation and by the time the bill is presented to these sponsors for introduction, the sponsors may not be aware of where the language in the bill came from.鈥�
The sponsor of Ohio鈥檚 鈥淪aving Adolescents From Experimentation鈥� Act, Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) has not responded to 星空无限传媒's request for comment.