Ohio House Judiciary Committee - 3-25-2026

Good morning. The House Judiciary Committee will come to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? Chairman Thomas? Here. Vice Chair Swieringen? Here. Ranking Member Svendberg is excused. Representative Pickle Antonio? Here. Representative Callender? I'm here. Representative Matthews? Here. Representative Muhammad? Here. Representative Odioso? Here. Representative Olsler? Representative Plummer? Here. Representative Seward? Here. Representative Timms? Here. Representative Williams? Here. We have a quorum present and will proceed as a full committee. Please review the minutes from the last meeting on your iPads. Are there any objections to the minutes? Hearing none, the minutes are approved. As a reminder, any audio or video, if you'd like to take any audio or video today in the committee room, you must fill out a form on the table and bring it up to the chair, and we'll get it signed for you before you start. Okay. I see that. So today, Ranking Member Sindenburg is not present, so I'd like to nominate Representative Piccolantonio to serve as the secretary. Are there any objections? Hearing none, Rep. Piccolantonio is appointed as the secretary. Thank you. I'd now like to call up House Bill 249 for its fourth hearing. I call on Representative Pickle-Antonio for a motion.

The amendment is in order and can be found on your iPads. Can you please explain the amendment?

Thank you for the explanation. I recognize Representative Williams to speak to the amendment.

I call on Ranking Member Swearingen for a motion.

The question is, shall the motion to table be agreed to?

So with an objection, will the clerk please call the roll? For the motion to table, Chairman Thomas? Yes. Vice Chair Swearingen? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Sindberg. Representative Pickle Antonio?

Representative Callender?

Representative Matthews?

Representative Muhammad?

Representative Odioso?

Representative Olsseger? Representative Plummer?

Representative Stewart?

Representative Dimms?

Representative Williams?

With sufficient votes, the motion to table is passed. And I now call on Vice Chair Swearingen for a motion.

Will the clerk please call the roll? Chairman Thomas?

Vice Chair Swearingen?

I rank Member Sineberg, Representative Pickle-Antonio?

Representative Callender?

Representative Matthews?

Representative Mohamed?

Representative Odiosa?

Representative Volsiger? Representative Plummer? Yes.

Representative Timms? No.

With sufficient votes, the bill is favorably reported. The roll will stay open until noon today in the clerk's office. This concludes the fourth and final hearing for House Bill 249. I'd now like to call up House Bill 345 for its third hearing. I call on Vice Chair Swearingen for a motion.

The amendment is in order and can be found on your iPads. Please, can you explain the amendment?

The question is, shall the motion to amend be agreed to? Hearing no objection, the motion is accepted. Regarding testimony, the office received no opponent testimony regarding House Bill 345. So this concludes the third hearing for House Bill 345. I'd now like to call up House Bill 686. For his first hearing I like to invite Representative Schmidt to provide sponsor testimony Welcome to committee Thank you very much Chair Thomas Vice Chair Swearengin and Ranking Member Sinnenberg

Representative Smith, thank you for your testimony. Are there any questions for the sponsor? Good. I did my job. Yes, that means everybody likes it. It's just a common sense piece of legislation, sir. All right. Thank you. Thank you. This concludes the first hearing for House Bill 686. I'd now like to call up House Bill 611 for its first hearing. I like to invite up Representative Callender and Stewart to provide sponsor testimony

Chairman Thomas, Vice Chair Swearingen, Ranking Member Piccoli Antonio for today. Just want to thank you for letting us have the opportunity to talk about this. I'll truncate my testimony based on a calendar very ably kind of setting the stage. I would just say, you know, Senate Bill 56, as it moved through, was complicated enough without sort of adding in licensure questions and square footage and sort of inviting these other questions. And so we had an understanding that if we could get that bill done, we would kind of come back and kind of tackle this, what I think is kind of a niche business issue for an emerging industry. You know, the goal of House Bill 611 is to allow these standalone processors to apply for what would essentially be a Level 3 cultivation license, 5,000 square feet of cultivation area. This is a very modest space that would allow them to grow their own product and without kind of significantly impacting the business of the existing Level 1 and Level 2 cultivators, who, as Representative Callender said, they have 100,000 square feet. We're talking about 5,000 square feet. And I think that, you know, when Ohio voters passed issue two in 2023, they told us they want legal, safe, highly regulated market for adult use marijuana. And it now our job in the legislature whether you supported that issue or not it now the law And I think it our job to address issues that come out of an emerging industry like this really in the same way we would any other business industry that comes to our state. What is working? What is not working? What regulations make sense? What regulations don't make sense? What regulations are unduly burdensome? And I think that we need to step in to ensure that some reasonable competition can exist here to drive all the companies in this market to provide better service to their customers. So this bill is a simple, common-sense way to facilitate that better service for adult-use customers and the medical patients, and we hope the committee will favorably consider it. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you both for bringing this legislation here today and for your testimony. I agree that we should be making sure that revised code matches with what the intent of the voters was. So I appreciate this. My question is really maybe not specific to this bill, but specific to the idea of what I think the intent of this bill is, which is to protect market competition, small business owners. Maybe I'm implying intent that's not there, but my question is really about another piece of 56 that is related to beverages, hemp beverages. And I guess I'm really wondering, do you anticipate bringing legislation that would also help align that portion of revised code with what I think the intent of the voters was and what I maybe again, maybe I am implying intent that you didn't state. But I think I hear you saying that you want to make sure that our small business owners are able to compete in the marketplace in the way that they expected and invested to be able to have that competition. I'll take the first step through the chair to the member.

and sponsor testimony will get covered. But one of the complaints we hear right now from the folks who voted for Issue 2 is that because of the regulation there a limited supply and that driving the cost up to end consumers And what we seeing with the and I use the same euphemism orphaned processors processors that are not vertically integrated, is they're being kind of squeezed out of the market and not going to be able to continue. And as that happens, that leaves more and more monopolistic marketing for the remainder of those. And eventually, if folks get squeezed out of the market, and again, these are folks who have gone through very rigorous background checks and very rigorous applications to get their licenses. As those folks get squeezed out, the inevitability of that, just basic market economics, is prices will continue to go up. So by trying to make sure that the orphan processors are able to process and participate as was originally intended when the license were issued, I think that will help keep prices down, keep them in check, and over time as everybody's ramped up, we'll see prices come down. The biggest complaints that we hear here is that it's a lot cheaper in Michigan than here. And none of us, especially because some Northwest Ohio people on the committee, none of us want people going to another state because either the quality or the price are better. That's just not – as an Ohio legislator, that's not acceptable. And this bill is a small step, but it's a step to go that direction. As I said, we'll see others. I've committed to do something for beverages, and we don't have the exact form or format yet. but we'll reach out for you for co-sponsorship when we do. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you guys for this legislation. I remember the discussion we had during the previous bill. I absolutely believe that, you know, the best business model in this industry is to be vertically integrated. It's what we saw drive down the prices in Michigan. we know with lower prices comes with increased consumption which can lead to type of societal issues but what I want to focus on for a second I got to play devil's advocate because this was the arguments that we were having before was that when issue two passed it was under the idea we were going to have a limited number of dispensaries so processors and cultivators I'm okay with that integration between the two but you got to explain to me why there was an understanding there was gonna be a limited number of dispensaries that it wasn't gonna flood every single community in the state of Ohio people went out and bid on those licenses with the understanding there was gonna be a limited market of dispensaries and now we're gonna not now we're gonna put 14 more dispensaries out potentially 14 more dispensaries out there through the I understand it but tell me tell me on the dispensary part of it why we need to get 14 more licenses to add dispensaries compared to like cultivator processor I get that part they need to have product to process and sell to the dispensaries but why do they have to get an independent dispensary license well first of all it's 14 out of 400 and something so it's we're not dealing with a huge percentage secondly I think a lot of folks who voted for issue two we're not wanting a limited number of dispensaries. I think communities, certainly we don't want what happened with the hemp stores where you end up with one on every corner to happen, and that won't happen under Ohio's scheme. So we're dealing with a limited number. But secondly processing this and getting products to them to process is one thing but getting it to consumers is another And what happening with the vertically integrated is there a natural tendency to sell your own product rather than a competitor product And so what in effect is happening, even if we were to try to force the market by forcing dispensaries to carry all processor stuff, and I'm not sure we can as a free market guy, I'm not sure I want to do that, But even if we did, there's still product placement and product advertising and the signage and who your salespeople push to. And the folks that are not vertically integrated are severely disadvantaged in that era. So this bill would alleviate that problem.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the both of you for bringing this bill. I think this is a good step in the right direction. There have been a lot of issues coming out of a variety of changes, federal, state, etc. But the idea was that the average Joe would be able to participate in the market. You mentioned there were only 14. I know that some other businesses were going out of business because they weren't able to compete against the Goliaths. And we're also seeing a lot of disenfranchisement of these small cultivators in other states because they can't compete with these multi-state, multinational companies. company. So can you talk a little bit about how you foresee more Ohioans being able to participate in the marketplace as a as a business owner in this space because of this bill? Yes and no. Yes I can speak to it. No it's really not going to increase because it's limited to the current license holders of the Orvin processors. Now, having said that, the majority of those 14, I don't know the exact number, are minority-owned businesses. So it will allow those minority-owned businesses and community-owned, disadvantaged community-owned businesses to expand into the marketplace further and helps them get a better foothold in the industry or take the foothold they have and expand it into a more viable market model.

Yes, follow-up. Thank you chair, and I'm so glad that you mentioned that because I've heard from a number of some of these minority owned businesses who've had They were forced to sell their license and so do you think there is a pathway to ensure that? Should this bill pass which I think is a good bill To be clear is there a path to rehabilitate those folks who are forced out of business? because they could not compete in the process and the cost of maintaining accessing and keeping the license is basically a really it's cost a lot of money and so you know these folks are now in debt they're out of business they can't compete in the marketplace and they've lost a great deal of their investment. I too am bothered by that. However, this bill only addresses those that are still

I have more, but I'll follow up offline. Thank you.

Representative Mohamed with a question.

Thank you, Representative. Through the Chair, that's a great question. and it took a lot of thought, but when we were pursuing this before, there was at least one, maybe more, that listed their processor for sale at hundreds of times what they'd paid for because they were going to get a gross site and they were going to get, and we wanted to discourage that. That's something we can come back and visit after the bill is in effect. But we didn't want to create a situation where folks are selling to out-of-state companies to profit. This bill is to protect those who in good faith wanted to be part of Ohio's cannabis program and in good faith applied for the license. Those who are doing it simply to sell to an out-of-state company for maximum profit is not necessarily the target audience that we're trying to help with this.

Any other questions for the sponsors? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for putting us on today. This concludes the first hearing for House Bill 611. I'd now like to call up House Bill 693 for its second hearing. First to provide proponent testimony is Megan Brock. Welcome to committee. Please proceed when you're ready. Okay. Thank you so much for having me. Good morning.

Thank you for your testimony. Vice Chair Swearengen has a question.

Yeah, I mean, I actually had a story posted yesterday about how some of the members that were working in Ohio, these transgender activists, were at a meeting on October 16th in 2024, three weeks before the presidential election, that was strategizing on how these interventions could reach the research and the scientific evidence level needed to be part of a prevention services clearinghouse which is a federal database of different interventions and programs that local child welfare agencies can use and be reimbursed through federal dollars So this was, I recommend you read this story if you're interested. I got this all through FOIA emails, but I think it really shows how all of these interventions and this whole idea that there was an activist on a webinar, an HHS webinar in the fall of 2023, who actually said transphobia is abuse. And I think we need to really think about how serious that is, because obviously nobody wants to see any child abused. And there are there are laws to prevent that because we want to protect children. But if you actually believe that a parent not calling their 12-year-old daughter who's confused, who's going through adolescence, who's feeling a bit of body dysphoria, if you really believe that that loving parents telling her, no, you're not a boy, you're a girl, and we want to help you. We want to help you be the person you are. We want to help you reach womanhood with a complete body. If you believe that that is abuse, I mean, that is absolutely egregious. And I would argue that the activists, there are absolutely activists who believe that. And that's what this whole program is really based on, that idea. Just one quick follow-up question.

Yeah, I mean, the federal government has really cracked down on this. Obviously, the Trump administration has issued executive orders making sure that no federal dollars are affirming these programs. There has not been any federal legislation that has taken place yet. But I would say what Ohio is doing is so important because federal executive action is really only good for four years. So unless there is legislation taken either at the federal level or at the state level, then I think that these programs, these activists, they're not just going to let go of these issues. So I think it's really important.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you so much for your testimony. This bill, I really like where it's going. Do you have experience, and what you're saying makes sense, in protecting the families that have already formed and protecting parents of their own children? Do you have experience either of examples in Ohio or elsewhere where adoptive families have been kept out of the adoptive process because of children's services or others almost putting their own type of religious test on the type of parents that could adopt? And do you think this bill could include that or does include that or would be adjacent to that? I mean, I know there I believe there was a family up in Massachusetts somewhat recently where they were being denied the opportunity to foster or adopt because of their religious beliefs. And that really ties into the September 2023 regulation. If anyone's familiar with that, that is the the Biden administration had a regulation that was demanding that any family involved in foster care needed to, quote unquote, affirm a child's gender identity and that regulation was actually informed by members of the Cuyahoga Child Services team and I have emails I'm happy to pull them up on my phone and show any of you if you don't believe me I'll send them to you send me an email but I think to your point unless that there is legislation I think clarifying this that we can see that regulatory process kind of revert after this administration if an administration that favors these ideas as is put in place.

Thank you, Chair. So one of the things that this bill does is provide a definition of affirming a child's sex. And as part of that definition, it includes, let's see if I'm reading the right part, making decisions to protect the emotional and mental health of the child. Um, if a child, if a child is engaging in self-harm based on a parent's decision to refuse to acknowledge their child's desire to express themselves in a different way, how does allowing the parents to continue to make decisions for that child how does that protect the child's mental and emotional health can you clarify on what you mean by allowing that this child to express herself in a different way can you clarify what you mean by that sure so i can answer your question sure um so i am reading directly from the bill itself there's a change to section 3129.10 that defines affirmation of a minor child sex affirmed in a minor child sex quote affirming am i i'm going to skip some of the repetitive part it means guiding instructing raising or referring to or intending to guide instruct raise or refer to a minor child in a manner consistent with the minor child's sex and making decisions for the purpose of protecting the minor child's bodily integrity, development, and emotional and mental health, including, and then it lists. So I think the question you're asking me then is what about if a parent is affirming their child's sex and you're suggesting that affirming a child's sex is going to cause a mental distress that's going to cause suicide. Is that the question you're asking me? What would we do about that?

Yes, please. Thank you. I'm actually asking the inverse of that.

Okay. Well, their identity, I mean, I think about a girl who has an eating disorder, right? I mean, your question, that's a mental health thing. I think about a 12-year-old girl, a parent should not affirm, you know, a 12-year-old girl who has a mental disorder and is actually actively engaged in self-harm to the point where she's destroying her body because she believes she's fat. Do you think a parent should affirm that? Is that unloving? Is that the parent's fault if that child is feeling distress or suicidal because the parent won't affirm that she's fat?

Yes, follow-up.

I'm sorry. I mean, I would say that do transgender people exist and why that is important to this bill. I mean, I'm a pediatric nurse, so I did learn about anatomy and physiology in my education. And one of the things I learned is that there's two reproductive cells in which you can create a human being. Those are the sperm and the ova from the woman. And those two reproductive cells define us as male and female. To my knowledge, there is no third reproductive cell. So in terms of their trans, quote-unquote, transgender people existing and why that relates to this bill, reality tells us that there are two sexes, male and female. If anyone in the room has found a third productive cell, I would love to know. That sounds like an incredible accomplishment that you found that. But I absolutely believe that parents should have the right, even if it causes a child distress. I mean, my parents are not teenagers yet, but I know that teenagers are actually quite known for not always agreeing with their parents. And that part of parenting is you have to guide them lovingly to actually really realize their full potential as adults. So regarding this bill, is it loving for a parent to tell a 12-year-old daughter who's struggling with this gender dysphoria, with dysphoria that, hey, you're a woman and I'm going to help guide you towards being a woman? I'll also say there's a report in April 2024, the CAST Review, that was from the Health Institute in England. And they actually, one of the points that I thought was most fascinating about their support was they said that socially transition, so that's kind of what you're getting at, which would be using a child's preferred pronouns, affirming them as another sex, while it did not actually improve the mental health of the child. So the idea that it's going to improve is not based in fact anyway, but it did actually put a child on the pathway to medicalization. So a parent of a 12-year-old girl is saying, you know what, I don't want you going on a path that's going to lead to you having your breasts chopped off and possibly never being able to be a mother. That is love. Maybe it doesn't feel like love to the child, but that is love.

Yeah, I have all of them right here on my phone in terms of the documents. They were all, all of the documentation outside of the emails, but in terms of these forms in this program, was all publicly on Cuyahoga County's website. They have since removed it. However, all the links are saved in the archive, and I am happy to provide. I mean, I can show you the form right now on my phone. I have it right here. So I do have all the documents that I referenced.

Yeah, honestly, I'm just a normal mom. I'm not a political person. I'm not someone who I was raising my kids, had a great business, and loving my life when I realized that 30 minutes away from me, there were children who were getting their breasts cut off as young as 12 years old because of their gender confusion. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm a nurse. I'm a reasonable adult. I have a responsibility to protect the children in my community and in this country from this absolutely egregious harm And that what set me down the path of ultimately ending up in investigative journalism And in terms of Cuyahoga County specifically I was researching a federal grant and just kind of went down the rabbit trail and ended up in Ohio of all places which absolutely surprised me as well I did not expect to be here.

Great.

Absolutely. And I would say that this isn't, to me, gender ideology is not a, it's been politicized, but it's an issue that's had bipartisan support because it's really ultimately an issue of what it means to be a human being. What does it mean to be male or female? And I think that's something that is very pressing to everyone and very relevant to everyone, regardless of political affiliation.

Thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you.

Welcome to committee. Thank you. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to testify today on this critical legislation. I'm a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, testifying today in my personal capacity. The Affirming Families First Act is the most comprehensive bill in the nation today addressing the ideological weaponization of child welfare systems against families. It is the result of extensive collaboration with parent advocates, policymakers, and attorneys to establish protections for children and families targeted by radical gender ideology. If you pass this bill, you will set a national standard for protecting families and children, not only by establishing guardrails against hostile state overreach, but by rooting out the radical training that has so deeply infiltrated state systems. As Meg said, for many years now, families across the U.S. have been torn apart in the shadows. parents losing their children simply for refusing to use false pronouns for affirming the immutable biological binary reality of sex. Tragically kids have been harmed, trafficked, and even died in state care after being removed from their families on these false claims of abuse. And thousands more have been denied access to loving foster families simply because those parents affirm reality. Three years ago I stood with a mother named Michelle Blair in my home state of Virginia as she publicly told her daughter Sage story for the first time in an attempt to protect others through a bill called Sage Law Her story was referenced by the president at the State of the Union Sage experience highlights the catastrophic damage to children when activists in schools and child welfare systems hijack their protective purpose to serve gender ideology instead and remove a child's greatest protection, his or her parents. Sage was a 14-year-old freshman when she was secretly socially transitioned at her school, badly bullied, and then assaulted in the boys' bathroom the school counselors had told her to use. Through all this, even meeting with the police, the school kept her parents in the dark. She ran away two days later in fear of further bullying and was found by a predator she had met through transgender websites the school had given her. She disappeared for eight days, raped and trafficked across state lines to Maryland, but when she got to Maryland, a judge withheld custody from her parents after the FBI found her. because a public defender alleged abuse in connection with misgendering. The judge ordered this tiny trafficking victim into the male quarters of a state children's home, where she was harmed further. He refused to order trauma treatment because the program treated female victims of sexual exploitation. While Michelle was frantically working to clear the spurious abuse charges, the public defender lied to Sage that her mother didn't want her anymore, and she would find her an affirming foster home in Maryland. None of Michelle's many letters ever reached her daughter at the home. And after two months, Sage ran away again and was once again caught in the nightmare of trafficking until she was found two months later. Sage later said she really wasn't a boy. She'd only wanted to make friends. And yet, parents like Michelle find themselves before a phalanx of teachers, social workers, and judges trained to collaborate to remove children from parents who do not subscribe to state-sanctioned gender orthodoxy. Somehow, a parent has safely and lovingly cared for a child for a lifetime, but is dangerous for not affirming a child's claim to be the opposite sex. And secrecy is a feature, not a bug, of these proceedings. The perversion of the concept of abuse underlies every secrecy policy, from child protective settings to schools. There's no scientific evidence or marker for gender identity, and yet, incredibly, it is abuse to not sterilize, castrate, or use cross-sex pronouns for one's child in the upside-down universe of gender ideology. And these radical ideologues have trained social workers, teachers, and judges that parents who affirm reality are unsafe. Online platforms and activist school clubs tell kids they must keep secrets from their parents, that their parents are unsafe if they disagree with them, and they must trust these strangers instead. In fact, according to the database of school secrecy policies maintained by Defending Ed, multiple Ohio districts maintain these policies. One of the activist complaints against this bill that I read, in fact, is that it will force a change to their school policies. That should concern every parent in the state. And as Meg has testified, all this training has consequences, from teachers to social workers to judges. The fact that Ohio CPS surveilled hundreds of families to determine if they were affirming enough needs to be considered in light of what it would mean if this ideological drive is left unchecked in Ohio and at the mercy of political winds instead of being stopped at the outset. based on that pilot program there are about 200 families if you multiply that by 88 counties you're talking about who knows 17,000 18,000 Ohio families impacted by CPS scrutiny simply for affirming reality. The affirming families act affirming families first act brings all of into the light and permanently restores constitutional protections for vulnerable children and their families. It protects children already in state care from suffering further trauma by ensuring that they will not be denied placement with loving families simply because these families affirm the reality of sex. And yes, in answer to your question, that happens all over. There are multiple lawsuits over families who have been denied foster placements, who have loving homes, but simply affirm reality and have been denied that by states. It ensures that this act ensures parents do not lose the right to care for their own children and that state actors cannot keep secrets about their child's mental health from fit parents. And it goes to the root of the problem by ensuring that child protective systems can no longer be trained to promote and act on this poisonous ideology. In the simplest of terms, it is never abuse to raise a girl as a girl or a boy as a boy. No state should ever rip a child from a family simply because his or her parents refuse to medicalize, sterilize, or use false pronouns for that child. Thanks to Representative Click and Williams, Ohio has a chance to lead the nation not only in protecting families and children from being torn apart by weaponized child welfare systems, but also by extracting this ideology by the roots. Thank you.

Representative Mohamed with a question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. A lot to unpack there. You talked about ideological organization. You talked about child placement. I do want to start with first foster placement. I know that's one of the ones that you mentioned. Do you believe that if a child is transgender, if a child is exhibiting symptoms that's different from their, you know, sex at birth, do you believe placing that child with a parent who does not believe that, do you believe that's appropriate? I think that's one of the concerns that certainly I have with this bill is the risk that it poses for a child to be placed with a parent who does not believe, you know, what the

Follow-up? Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Sure. Again, there's a lot in your premise that I disagree with as well, and this is part of the issue with this bill is there is a lot of disagreement on that. And one of the questions that I asked previously in sponsor testimony as well is a concern that I have essentially with this bill when it comes to what it's trying to target, and essentially which is often judges and how courtrooms are being conducted. And we can pick anecdotal sort of evidence all day and talk about specific cases, and certainly we have a lot of sympathy towards that. It's understandable. But the issue that we're having is ultimately judges, prosecutors, mental health professionals, guardian ad litems. These are individuals that work in these courts, that understand case-by-case basis. And ultimately what this bill is doing is limiting that discretion because typically the goal is what's in the best interest of the child and not necessarily what is the political ideology of the parent, what they believe in. It's ultimately up to the child. And there's evidence that children are unfortunately committing suicide, transgender kids that are being targeted. There is a lot of evidence out there. So the concern that I have essentially is your testimony when you talk about there's no scientific evidence. There is a lot out there. So, I mean, not necessarily a question, really more so a comment. Thank you.

Member Pickle-Antonio with a question. Thank you, Chair. Ms Hanford do you think that there are ever people who can be a gender that is different than their sex assigned at birth or do you think that that is always the result of gender confusion or radical gender ideology I think the only thing that we know for sure there

Paula? Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your answer to that question. So I guess one of my other questions is, why do most major medical associations support evidence-based clinical care for the kind of children that we're talking about here?

Follow up. Thank you so much, Chair. Just for clarification, the medical associations that I'm referring to include American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Dermatology, American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, and on. And I also want to clarify that that type of care does not include, I think there was some reference to cutting off breasts. That is not what we're talking about here. that evidence-based clinical care for minors does not include surgery. So my question to you is, is supporting a child who is transgender with clinical-based, evidence-based care, is that child abuse?

One more, Chair. Thank you so much. And some of the comments, I think, from you made reference to two biological sexes. Do you think that erasing the idea of transgender people from public life would make society better?

Senator Timms with a question. Thank you, Chair, and thank you for being here today. I really like your necklace, the colors, rainbow colors. My question is, I guess, in looking at your testimony and reviewing it, what drives your passion for talking about transgender children?

Follow-up? Thank you. Well, I appreciate your opinions. the standard the legal standard is the best interest of the child and so if you have an issue with the judge and their interpretation there are certain processes you can take through the courts neither here or there transgender children are about 1% of the population I see here you're a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation I think 99% of children need food clothing and housing, Project 2025 tears that into pieces. So I was just curious about your keen interest on focusing on 1% of children.

Follow up. Last one. Sure. Every child that is in the foster care system needs a loving home. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. I mean, we all want children to feel safe and protected. and it sounds like the story of SAGE is your driving, motivating factor and your passion to answer that question as to why you're here today, all the way from Virginia. But we will continue to have these conversations, I guess, about 1% of the population. My position remains we need to focus on what the 99%, which is affordable issues. Thank you.

Sure.

Representative Stewart with a question.

Thank you. I appreciate that, although I don't mind the questions.

Thank you so much, Chair. Thank you for being here. I echo what Rep Stewart had said. And to follow up on a line of questioning that I don't think this is narrowing. Looking at the foster and adopt statistics, about 1 or 2% of people in the United States of adults have adopted, but people of faith are something like three or five times that. And how do you think this type of – these types of regulations, these types of thumbs on the scales by judges, these types of rules have put cold water and probably left people – left children in the foster care system longer than they should have been?

Good question.

Thank you very much.

Thanks.

Thank you, Chair Thomas, Vice Chair Swearingen, ranking members and members of the Judiciary Committee. I'm Matt Sharp, Senior Counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom. Our law firm represents families whose constitutional right to raise and care for their children have been violated by government action. At its core, HB 693 is about securing the right of parents to raise and care for their child. It ensures that Ohio families never fear punishment by the government for raising their child consistent with his or her sex. In recent years, as we've heard, there's been a wave of secret transition policies that have swept the nation. These policies, found in more than 1,000 school districts, including here in Ohio, violate parental rights by directing school staff to conceal information from parents if a child expresses a desire to identify as a different gender. These harms are not theoretical. At ADF, we represent families harmed by such policies. A Michigan school district treated a middle school girl as a boy and then scrubbed the child's educational records before sharing them with her parents. In New York, a mother who noticed her daughter was struggling with depression and anxiety repeatedly asked school officials about her daughter's emotional struggles. The school assured the mother nothing was happening, yet concealed the fact that it had been treating the young girl as a boy for months. And similar policies do exist here in Ohio. For example, just a few miles away in the Bexley City Schools, they have a policy stating, quote, staff should not disclose a student's transgender status to others, including other students, parents or guardians or other staff members, end quote. Policies like this hide information from parents and violate a parent's right to wreck the upbringing and education of their children. In fact, earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court restored an injunction against a California policy that prohibited school officials from sharing information about a child transitioning with the parents, unless the child consented. The court held quote gender dysphoria is a condition that has an important bearing on a child mental health But when a child exhibits symptoms of gender dysphoria at school this California policy conceals that information from parents and facilitates a degree of gender transitioning during school hours. These policies likely violate parents' rights to direct the upbringing and education of their children. HB 693 would prevent secret social transition policies at schools and make sure that staff are not hiding this information from parents or coercing vulnerable children to do the same. But the harm for these policies is not just limited to parents. These same policies often threaten teachers with punishment unless they affirm radical gender ideology by addressing a student by a pronoun or title that is inaccurate and does not reflect biological truth. One of our clients, Vivian Garrity, was a middle school English teacher in the Jackson Local School District here in Ohio. She was forced to resign after the district began requiring teachers to personally participate in the social transition of children by using their preferred pronouns and names. Vivian simply wanted to refrain from speaking in a way that violated her religious beliefs and her scientific understanding of what it means to be male and female. And for that, Vivian lost her job. HB 693 would protect caring teachers like Vivian from losing their jobs simply because they cannot in good conscience call a boy a girl or hide information from a child's parents. And as we've discussed, this bill would also protect loving families who want to open their home to foster and adopt children, but who are discriminated against because they will not deny biological reality. They protect people like our clients, Brian and Rebecca Gantt. The Gantts were considered one of Vermont's top foster care families when an urgent need arose for the placement of a newborn child with a drug dependency issue. But Vermont refused to let the Gantts foster this newborn child unless the couple agreed to use inaccurate pronouns or even to take a child to a pride parade. The state even revoked their license to engage in any more foster care. Stories like these and many others illustrate the kind of discrimination that HB 693 prevents in Ohio. As we've heard, the foster care system is overwhelmed. The latest data from the U.S. government says there's nearly 400,000 children in the foster care system. We need more families to care for children, not fewer. This bill would help protect caring families here in Ohio from being compelled to forsake their faith as a condition of opening their homes to children in need. Radical gender ideology has harmed far too many families here in Ohio and across the country. HB 693 represents an important step in helping to protect families from this ideology. Families who know a child's health and development are best served by raising that child consistent with his or her sex. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. Again, a lot to unpack there as well. I did want to ask, I know you mentioned several school districts and states that have policies that are essentially protecting transgender kids or kids that may or may not be dealing with parents who do not affirm what they are. So essentially, I know, and it's obviously going to be an ideological difference between the two of us, but essentially, it's my understanding a lot of these school districts are making that determination, not for ideological reasons, but because these kids are in situations where their parents would either harm them or there would be a situation where they would be homeless. And we often talk about homelessness and how that impacts youth. So have you had a chance to look at it from a different perspective and not necessarily from the perspective that you're coming from?

Mr. Chair, Representative Mohamed, I would answer that in two ways. Number one if there are credible concerns of abuse and neglect or abandonment I think Ohio law would require any school official as a mandatory reporter to report that to Child Protective Services What we concerned about here though is not where there is actual evidence of abuse or neglect where there is disagreement with the parents' decisions of how they raise their child, where a teacher says, we know your mom and dad want to raise you consistent with your sex. I disagree with that, and therefore, by school policy or by the teacher's own decision, I'm going to decide to withhold this information from parents. And as the Supreme Court said in the Mirabelli case that I referenced, because these are so important issues. A child struggling with gender dysphoria is a very critical issue. That's why it's vital for parents to be that first phone call so that parents can be involved, look at the evidence, look at everything, and make the best decision for that child. That's the role of parents, not school officials.

Yes, follow-up. Thank you. So I think the disagreement we have between the two of us is I don't believe it's something that – do you believe this is something that's being pushed by either school counselors or school districts? Because it's my opinion that it's kids who are transgender or kids who believe that they are at risk being at home. And they're ultimately communicating that to school counselors. And that's why that school district are not then complying with notifying the parent. But do you believe that there is an actual push? Because I know you mentioned secret conversions. There's a push coming essentially from school counselors or school districts to the children. Or do you believe it's vice versa essentially? Thank you.

Again, we provide an example of the Bexley City Schools and others that have these policies that specifically direct school staff, not listening to the child or anything else, but saying, as a matter of policy, you cannot disclose this to parents. You think of all the things a child goes through, a child that is having behavioral issues at school, a child that's struggling academically. There's lots of reasons that a child might say, don't tell mom and dad I got an F on this, or don't tell mom and dad I got in a fight at school. But we know that the duty of school officials is to immediately inform parents of all of those things. It should be no different when a child is struggling with any mental health issue, including questions about their gender. The first call should be to parents. Again, absent concrete evidence of abuse and neglect, which would trigger the mandatory reporting laws, the first call should be to parents to notify them and include them. And that's why the Supreme Court enjoined that California policy, recognizing that it violates parents' rights to have that default rule of excluding parents from these conversations.

Again, so maybe just a simple yes and no response to this one, and this is going to be the ultimate disagreement we often have. If a child is essentially being restricted from affirming what their general belief is, do you believe that in and of itself is abuse? That's sort of essentially the ultimate question that we disagree on.

Representative Olsley, you're with a question.

Representative Sleger.

Any other questions for the witness? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.

Our next witness is Jamie Reed. Welcome to committee. Please proceed when you're ready.

witness? Representative Williams with a question. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for being here.

Representative Williams. This is not my personal opinion. This is based on what we know about child psychology and what we know about child development. Children do not have the capacity nor the need to be questioned on anything regarding gender identity or sexual orientation at the age of five. I currently right now have a four-year-old, a six-year-old, an eight-year-old, a 15-year-old, and a 17-year-old in my home, all boys. What I know about their developmental understanding is that children of a certain age, under the age of eight, actually exist in a pre-logical state. So they don't even understand that line of questioning, nor would they be able to provide an answer that we could use to do anything about it. But in addition to that, if you actually still believe in the concept of gender dysphoria or that there is anyone in this world that should be medically transitioned, and you actually understood what they set out to do, it was never, ever to get in between as a wedge between a child and a parent, even a young child who was expressing gender nonconformity. We never intended this protocol to wedge the only kids in the original cohort that were allowed to medically transition were those whose parents were the ones who were directing the care and were in full support of the care. Even the people who created this in the Netherlands think that the Americans have completely lost their minds in the way that we have turned this into a social transition that is being carried out by school social workers. It was never meant to be like this, and this is a complete reversal. again if you still even believe in this concept they're not even following it in

First, I'll give you the clinical term for this. So this is referred to as triangulation. So when we intentionally create wedges between a parent and a child through a third-party mechanism, be it a medical provider, a school, social worker, et cetera. Some of the things I know that I participated in I'm not proud of, but I do know that within the medical centers, and you had many medical centers here in Ohio that were early adopters of pediatric gender medicine, when a parent would come to a center like that and ask for us to slow down, ask for us to review the data, it was often the dads, And it was often dads who are in child welfare or custody already pushed off to the side. They're already seen as less than as parents than moms. But we very often would refer to those dads as being bigots, as being parents who didn't know their children. and there were even parents who were PhD-level biochemists that would come to our clinic and say, can we please review this research study? And instead of even welcoming them into the clinic space, we made a dad sit on the first floor of the hospital in a private closet area next to a security guard, and all he wanted to do was ask about the research and the data. Parents were bullied into these practices for decades in these centers, And these centers went out and spread that bullying message into your child welfare system, into your schools, and into your custody courtrooms. And that is what we have to claw back. We have to pull this back.

Representative Muhammad with a question. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your testimony as well. There's a lot of data that you referenced in a lot of scientific models, surveys. would you provide that to the committee? And I'm not really being combative in asking that. My understanding is there's a lot of data on the other side as well. Would that be something that you'd be able to provide how you came up with your analysis?

Paula. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just sort of switching topics briefly, one of the concerns with this bill is essentially conversion therapy, which is again, you know, minors, children that are transgender who are dealing with this. The concern that often we have is, you know, there is going to be an implication where these kids are going to be forced essentially to be able to change what their identity is. So, and 27 states including DC banned that as a horrible practice. Is that something that you support essentially?

Ma'am, I wasn't necessarily attacking you personally or your sexual orientation. This is really something that I personally see. I have constituents of mine, minors that are unfortunately being kicked out of their homes by their parents who don't believe in their sexual identity. This is something that we see on a regular basis. So this is not me impugning anything negative on your end, but really asking when you cite all these different citations and surveys that you're referencing, we're seeing something different on the streets every day that we deal with in our districts. So not necessarily a question, but a comment.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I'm generally talking about how this bill would impact families. How would it impact young minors, transgender, gay, lesbian, LGBTQ community members whose parents would not identify or understand what they're dealing with and how that will impact and lead to homelessness, how that will impact mental health issues? So I'm talking on a broader scale what we see on a regular basis in our districts.

Any other questions for the witness? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony.

Our next witness is Jeanette Cooper. Welcome to the committee.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there any questions for the witness? Representative Williams with a question.

There was no opportunity for that. When a child is identified by the family court system, any state official or anyone involved in the process, the moniker of a trans child eliminates any parent who has a question, not an affirming, just questions anything and does not what we call celebrate. I never and still have never talked about the quote gender identity of my child as something that I don accept Representative Click, co-sponsor of this bill, knows that I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a fairy person in the sky. I don't think that any supernatural being exists. But if my child wanted to go to church and believe that Jesus Christ was her Savior, then she's free to believe that in my house, and I don't think she should be taken away. So I'm a little confused about why I had to subscribe to some belief. I was required to attend 10 hours of parent and guardian, not parent, guardian kind of meetings at Lurie Children's Gender and Identity Clinic. And I sat there, and you introduce yourself. You go around and say your name and pronouns and your child's name and pronouns. And I introduced myself. I said I was Jeanette, and that's all that I really wanted to share. And I witnessed parents who were in extreme distress, and they were consenting to the disembodiment of their children under surely coercion. I lost all of my parenting time from the first day that I walked into family court. council went into closed chambers unlike, forgive me, Representative Muhammad referred to prosecutors in family court that doesn't exist all that tells me is that you've never been in family court if you believe they're prosecutors and that you don't have that experience people who have been through family court know what it's like so councils go into closed chambers and opposing council says the child says that she's trans and mom does not affirm My counsel says mom never said any such thing. She has not stated one thing or the other. And let's make a temporary order. Child will stay with dad until we can order an investigation. Mom has requested lunch with the child. I will deny that request. And I didn't see my daughter after that. I've seen her for maybe 11 hours. I've seen her for about 11 hours. I had like eight hours of family therapy, which consisted of her physically turning away from me. and the therapist not knowing what to do because she had a belligerent teenager until COVID came. And then I never, I didn't see her for three years after that. My dad testified here before. He's about 80 and I'm not sure he's going to see her before he dies. all because my daughter used the word unsafe. As Ms. Reed might say, a child who is abused, neglected, or truly unsafe does not use those words. They say things like, you know, my mom has a lot of boyfriends. Or they might say, do you have mice in your house? I have mice in my house. Or they might say I'm hungry about 25 times. but our children have learned the language of pulling strings of people by saying they're unsafe, and what unsafe means for a teenager is uncomfortable, and I don't like boundaries, or I don't like what my parents is asking of me. But to be honest, I run a huge parenting group of parents who are concerned about what's happening. I wouldn't say that they're not affirming because it's not—I hate this word. It's not a black and white I affirm completely or I don't. It's a spectrum. So I don't know how I could affirm or not affirm my child's gender identity if she was living with me from the time this happened. I don't really use my child's name that often, to be honest, in your own house. You say, hey, honey, get over here, or something like that. You never use your child's own pronouns in your own home. Most parents are getting along just fine with their trans-identified child in their own home, and I'm not sure I was denied that.

Nobody wants to ask a parent something about their own experience because it will rupture all of their ideas, and it will make them look awful and terrible, but what we're talking about is real families. And thank you for the fathers who are looking at me, because I have never met another mother who has suffered what I have suffered. It is fathers. It is fathers who are denied any contact at all, like I am and was, from being with my child.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. My name is Ronlee. I live in Columbus, Ohio, and I'm a mother. And I'm here because I have experienced what happens when a hurting child is separated from the parent who loves him most. My son began questioning his identity at the beginning of high school. At 14, he told me that he had gender dysphoria. He wanted hormones. He wanted surgeries. He told me I had to start using new names, female pronouns immediately. But I knew my child, and I knew this was not that simple. What I saw was not clear. I saw pain. I saw a child struggling with anxiety, depression, trauma, and deep discomfort in his changing body. I saw a child who felt different, a child who felt lost, A child who went online looking for answers and found a script that told him that his pain meant he was trans and that immediate medical intervention was the answer. So I did what any mother would do. I got him help. I took him to therapy thinking someone would slow down, ask questions, look at his mental health history, help us understand the root of his suffering. Instead, I was pushed aside. I was not asked what he had been through. I was not asked about his trauma. I was not asked about goals for therapy. I was asked whether I wanted a dead son or a living daughter. No mother should be ever spoken to that way. This is not care this is not compassion this is coercion Then the people around my son began treating me like I was the danger He was praised affirmed celebrated and I became the obstacle I was not informed when the school counselor pulled him out to join a support group I was not told when his name and pronouns were changed at school. I was shut out of some of the most important moments in my child's life, at the exact moment he needed his mother most. That's why I'm here today, because taking parental rights away does not protect children. It wounds them. It tells a vulnerable child, don't trust your parents, trust strangers instead. It tells that child that the person who has loved them, raised them, and stayed up crying for them is now their enemy. This is not protection. This is abandonment. Children in distress do not need more secrecy. They do not need more adults hiding things from their parents. They do not need schools, counselors, or systems replacing the people who know them best. They need the truth, they need time, and they need careful help. And they need their parents. Parental authority exists for a reason. It exists so that when our children are hurting, we can step in, slow things down, ask the hard questions, and protect them from decisions they may not understand for years. When that authority is stripped away, children lose their first line of protection. They lose the person that most invested in their long-term well-being. My son did not need me erased. He needed me to be empowered. He needed people to ask why he was hurting. He needed trauma addressed. He needed real mental health support. He did not need adults offering him a new identity as a shortcut through pain. House Bill 693 matters because it recognizes something that should never have been forgotten. Affirming a child's sex is not abuse. It's not neglect. It is not evidence that a parent is acting against a child's best interest. And a parent should not lose standing, authority, or custody for refusing to surrender a hurting child to a process that may cause irreversible harm. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you very much for your testimony. Tony, I appreciate you coming in. When we have this record and you tell your story, then folks can't say these things aren't happening. So I do appreciate your time. If you're not comfortable sharing, please don't have any issue with this. But if you are comfortable sharing, part of how we do our duty and investigate these issues is kind of see where this is happening. Are you comfortable sharing which school district took your son into a support group?

Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for coming in to testify. I know it's not easy to publicly come into a committee and tell your story, but it's so important because it puts a face to an issue we've been struggling with here in the state of Ohio. yeah when we dealt with the parents bill of rights and trying to prohibit schools from doing exactly what you're talking about we were told that we were trying to solve a non-issue that it didn't exist and then eventually it turned into well we should be able to do that because the parents are non-affirming and non supportive and hostile towards their children but during our sponsor testimony there was a couple questions about some of the definitions that we used in this bill And I think you can really spotlight it for me So we included the definition of parental alienation in this bill and we said it means a mental or emotional state in which without valid reason a minor child does both of the following. Rejects a fit parent, guardian, or legal custodian, and allies strongly with another parent or an individual or group of individuals who do not have legal custody or control over the minor, sometimes referred to as a chosen family. When it came to your case, did you think that the school, the therapist, the system generally, using gender transition of your child, resulted in you being alienated from your child? Taking your ability to choose how your children are raised, do you think that that resulted in parental alienation for you?

Parents, aren't there forms, you know, permission slips for them to participate in something in school, but I was completely alienated from that decision. Thank you.

Any other questions to the witness?

Not the trauma, just to be clear. I'm not asking for details about what your child went through. So he had been in therapy before any of this happened for anxiety and depression, and nothing had come out during therapy in this, you know, that had anything to do with trance. So he wasn't in therapy when he came. Well, let me backtrack a little. I found out because one of his teachers called me from school and said, hey, Aiden wrote a different name on his school paper, and I thought you should know. So when he got home from school, I asked him, what on earth, you know, what's going on? Why would you do that? And that's when, you know, he said, I'm trans. I want surgery. I want breasts. I want my penis cut off. That's it.

Can you? Sure, if I may, chair. Yeah, thank you. I'm really, I think what I'm trying to under, it sounds like you yourself recognize that some mental health support would be appropriate. And if I'm reading your testimony, I missed a little bit of your testimony, but if I'm understanding correctly, I think you said that when you took him to therapy, you felt like you were so moved from the controversy. So I was told by the therapist, this was after he came out and said, I'm trans. I found a therapist, took him in, and I thought that, you know, and every other experience in therapy, because he'd been in therapy before, you sit down with a therapist, you talk about, you know, what the goals of therapy, you know, the first the therapist meets with you, and then they meet with both of you together, and then, you know, alone one-on-one with your child, usually. I mean, that's what I had always experienced in the past. So it was consistent with that. But in the meeting with the therapist, I was told that he was going to affirm him and was not going to contradict any of that or try and find out where it was coming from. and that the best path was to just affirm, and he wouldn't be saying it if he wasn't trans. Now, mind you, this is a 14-year-old boy with ADHD on the spectrum who – is having social issues, and I had always given, he had never gotten any idea from home that it matters who he is, who his personality is, you know, what he, you know, if he wanted to wear whatever he wanted to wear, it was never, I've always been very open, he would, you know, let him dye his hair whatever color he wanted, you know, trying to be, you know, an accepting parent, but there are limitations to that. And when the therapist is telling you, you know, you walk in as a parent and say, these are the things I know about my child, and the therapist sits there and contradicts them based on not on anything factual but just on ideology and words that are used like, do you want a dead son or a live daughter? How does that help the situation? it doesn't and and and from a mental health perspective it also doesn't ask the question why do you feel that you are this you know a different gender uh you know let's look at like take the layers off where does that come from where you know if you look into it what happens because for my son there's underlying ptsd from early childhood that he later you know addressed in part, but the therapy tends to focus on being trans rather than what's really driving the feelings that they're having. And you can put on makeup, you can cut body parts off, but what's inside and how you feel about yourself inside, that can't be medically changed. There's no way to medically change how you feel inside about yourself. and just like you're not going to let a 10 year old girl get breast implants because she doesn't feel her breasts are large enough why would you let a 10 year old girl mutilate her body or or a boy mutilate his body when they haven't been given a chance to grow up and and figure out who they are on the inside and then once they're grown up you know that's a different story they're adults but that's that's pretty much how i feel really thank you so much chair um

Any other questions for the witness? Seeing none, thank you for your testimony. Our next witness is Anna Heron. Good morning.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there any questions?

Yeah, I've been accused of that in committee before.

I'm not 100 percent sure she knew that, at least going in.

It was nothing more. And while I might have wished for a particular outcome, I just needed to know that whatever was up with my kid was permanent and real and not driven by something else. If there were other issues, she needed to work that out before she pursued anything else. and no therapist should be punished for doing their job, any more than a parent should be punished for what I consider the biggest job of my life.

Thanks.

mr. chairman members of the committee my name is Lance Kinzer and I'm gonna talk a little bit about the law, and I love the fact that the conferee before me gave the testimony she did, because sometimes these legal principles embodied in statute, embodied in case law, seem as if they're a little bit abstract, but the law, I guess, is a little I resist to vindicate the lived experience of parents like the woman we heard just before us. And so the quick points I'd like to make is that, well, we've heard that HB 693 stands for this simple proposition that parenting that affirms a child's sex is not abuse or neglect. I want to note that that basic principle is already well established in Ohio law and that this bill is a needed and natural extension of some things that this legislature has already done. So, for example, in 2024, in the passing of H.B. 68, this legislature indicated that when in allocating parental rights and responsibilities or parenting time, no court should deny or limit a parent's parental rights and responsibilities based upon their decision to raise consistent with their sex. Moreover, at Ohio Code 3313.473, the Ohio legislature has already established the policy, the public policy, that a parent has a fundamental right to make decisions concerning the upbringing, education, and care of a parent's child. So these principles are embedded currently in Ohio law. Those same principles have been re-articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in a couple of cases recently. recently. Mahmood v. Taylor, back in July of 25, was a case dealing with school curriculum, but the foundation of that opinion was these same basic parental rights that the Ohio legislature has long recognized. That case was grounded in free exercise, but more recently, as we heard from Mr. Sharp, there was a Supreme Court decision March of this year, Mirabelli, which grounded the write not just in free exercise but also in due process and noted in doing so that cases like Pierce v Society of Sisters in my RV Nebraska going all the way back to the 1920s embed these same principles and my point is I really believe given where the litigation is going where Ohio law already is that there are absolutely opportunities for parents to litigate and win on the principles that are embedded in this bill, but parents don't want to litigate and win. Parents simply want to be able to use basic, prudent parenting practices and to have clear statutory protection that makes sure that parents are protected, that they don't have to go to court to vindicate these rights, is good for parents, it's good for kids, it's good for Ohio. And so I think this bill makes a lot of sense in the way that it gives definition to important principles that are already well embedded in our law, both at the state level and at the federal level. So thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Chairman Thomas, Vice Chair, Swearingen, Ranking Member Piccolo Antonio, members of the House Judiciary Committee, my name is Ryan Foles. I'm testifying here on behalf of the Center for Christian Virtue, Ohio's largest Christian public policy organization, to support the passage of HB 693. At the heart of this legislation is a simple yet profound recognition. A parent's fundamental right to raise, protect, and nurture their child is a cornerstone of a just and healthy society. For generations Ohio has respected the role of the family as primary shield for a child well HB 693 ensures that the shield remains intact by establishing that a parent decision to affirm their child actual biological sex is not and can never be considered abuse nor neglect. In recent years, we have seen a troubling shift where Ohio child protection systems have, at times, overstepped their bounds. There are documented instances across the country where fit and loving parents have faced the threat of removal or state intervention simply because of the decline to consent to an ideology that attempts to override biological reality. Similar state interventions include a 2017 case which resulted in lost custody of the parents and took place right down the road in Hamilton County. Simply put, HB 693 provides the necessary legal clarity to prevent these wrongful determinations of abuse from occurring in our state. To ensure neutral consistency remains, the bill also ensures that state-funded entities and contractors cannot characterize traditional parenting as unsafe or abusive. By requiring various state entities to certify compliance, we are creating a transparent system that honors the family unit. This bill ensures that our laws support parents in addressing a child's confusion or distress in a way that avoids lifelong medicalization with lifelong consequences. Raising a girl as a girl and a boy as a boy is not abuse, but the natural fulfillment and natural right of the parent. This bill is not only smart policy, but it is backed by years, a parental right affirming Supreme Court precedent. Protecting a child's development and bodily integrity is a legitimate state interest that Ohio should pursue. For these reasons I respectfully urge this committee to support the passage of the Affirming Families First Act. Thank you again for allowing me to speak and thank you to the bill sponsors representatives Gary Click and Josh Williams. I'm happy to take any questions at this time. Thank you

Hello, my name is Suzanne Carowan. I'm the proud mother of two college-age sons. I'm here representing Concerned Women for America, the nation's largest public policy organization for women. Thank you, Chairman Thomas and members of the House Judiciary Committee for hearing my support of HB 693. I spent a large portion of my motherhood actually navigating conversations like we've heard all morning and Going through constantly trying to handle this along with the churning waters of social media dominated society and the Outsized influence of gender ideology and politics and culture The current culture has raised the mama bear in me to shepherd my son safely to adulthood by making strategic decisions as to where to live where they go to school, what coaches they have, and where we worship. I have to intentionally safeguard my influence as a mother. And I would say it takes tremendous courage also to stand up to the normative pressure of what has become a gender machine in this country. Now, our family lived outside the Washington, D.C. area, ironically, in the Fairfax and Loudoun counties during my son's early childhood. I had a turning point one day when my oldest son was in third grade, He came running home from the bus stop, burst into tears, fell in my arms, exclaiming he had a horrible day, and that's because he found out that Santa Claus was not real, as well as, quote, homosexuality is a bona fide lifestyle choice. I was completely shocked not necessarily because of the topic just because of the timing of his age and whatnot in third grade These were not a third grader words I was not prepared at all for the questions that then ensued asking how does it work How do we know if you're a homosexual? How do I know if I'm a homosexual? What is a transgender? Is Santa trans? What does that mean for Mrs. Claus? What if you're not a homosexual? All these things were burst onto the scene as a parent without our knowledge. it was clear that we, the parents, were being chiseled out of their upbringing. A few years later, we decided to pick up, because obviously this kind of a curriculum that was in the school system, and we moved to central Ohio. So again, we moved from Washington, D.C. to central Ohio, which I know is one of the best decisions my family has ever made. Even in our new home in Dublin, Ohio, however, we were not able to kind of escape this. The pressure of the gender mandates have once again encroached the family table. My youngest son came home from sixth grade one day and told us that one of his classmates was decided to transition and go to their transgender identity. The entire classroom at that point on was driven by political mandates. It was completely disrupted. Everyone was asked by letter to affirm this child, and it caused all sorts of consternation in our own home. It violated many core beliefs of our family. It was overwhelming. It was confusing. all of us had to stop, address an issue that we didn't see needed to be part of the normal childhood process. We started to question, do we need to be in a community that did not trust us as parents to bring the upbringing of our own children?

Please vote in favor.

Yep, correct. Thank you. All right. Chair Thomas, Vice Chair Swearingen, Ranking Member Pickle Antonio, and members of the House Judiciary Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony in favor of House Bill 693. My name is Libby Krieger, and I'm a Young Woman for America ambassador, as well as a resident of Ohio who hopes to one day raise children here. I support this bill because it's a common-sense affirmation of the rights of parents and families. I don't pretend to know or understand how difficult for both parents and children going through gender identity conflict must be. But what I do know is that parents choosing to affirm the biological sex of their child is not child abuse. And frankly, it's offensive to those who have suffered from real abuse. My dad is a criminal court judge in Pennsylvania, and before that, he was in family court. The real stories of abuse he's encountered are heavy and life-shattering. He's a former Navy lieutenant who would come home exhausted and heartbroken over these horrific realities. Now imagine the reality of those who have experienced the abuse themselves. Opponents of this bill make a complete mockery out of real child abuse. I hope this is not their intention, but opposing this bill clouds the system of justice in the state that helps real victims by conflating a common sense confirmation of truth with physical harm. I believe God made male and female, and the idea that a person's gender identity can differ apart from biological sex is radical, contrary to thousands of years of human history, common sense, and science. But you don't even need to agree with me on that to see why this bill is necessary. The law ought to provide families the right to make the decisions that is in the best interest of their child without fear of being labeled an abuser or getting their child taken away by the state Now some may say this bill is unnecessary and I wish it was Certainly no one would try to divide families like this right But just a few years ago, a Hamilton County judge gave custody of a trans-identifying teenager to the child's grandparents because the parents refused to affirm the teen's gender identity. It has happened and it will continue to if we don't proceed with wisdom. It's happening all over this nation. The more we remove parents' authority in the lives of their children, the more lives will suffer for the progress of an agenda rather than the good of Ohio children. We must safeguard parental rights for the flourishing of all. The good people of Ohio elected you to protect their rights and liberty to thrive and raise their families well. This bill protects the rights of Ohio families, and I'd urge the committee to pass it for a House floor vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Lauren Legere. I'm a lifelong Democrat, a lesbian, and the co-executive director of the LGB Courage Coalition, which is a national nonprofit of gays, lesbians, and bisexual adults speaking out about the harms of pediatric gender medicine to same-sex attracted and gender nonconforming youth. We are gay and lesbian adults who have looked at what is being done to gender nonconforming children and concluded that it is causing serious, lasting harm. Most gender nonconforming kids grow up to be gay and lesbian adults if they are allowed to grow up naturally, if and only if their normal developmental trajectory isn't interrupted and derailed by puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. Research consistently shows that a majority of gender-incongruent children desist in that identification before adulthood if they are left alone and their biological sex is affirmed. Many children currently being socially and medically transitioned would, again, without intervention, had grown up to be gay or lesbian adults. There is also a second population, children who have arrived at a transgender identity through social contagion, unaddressed trauma, undiagnosed conditions like autism or ADHD. These children deserve honest clinical assessment, not a fast-tracked, irreversible intervention. This is exactly where HB 693 matters. Right now, parents who hesitate, who ask hard questions, who want more time, who simply want to parent according to their own judgment, are being treated as a problem. Parents who tell their little boy that he's a boy and their little girl that she's a girl face abuse investigations. They face custody threats. They face a system that has decided their child's identity for them and punishes any dissent. HB 693 restores the one protection these children actually need, a parent who is empowered to slow down, ask questions, and advocate for the child without fear of losing them. Many of us at the LGB Courage Coalition were gender nonconforming children ourselves. We know what it feels like not to fit the expected mold of your sex, and we know because we lived it, that the answer is not to change our bodies. the answer was time support and the freedom to grow into the adults we were always meant to be the children who are gender nonconforming today deserve this chance. HB 693 helps protect it. We urge this committee to support this bill. Thank you.

Nicole Amel?

My name is Nicole Amel, and I'm a mother from Lorain, Ohio. I'm here in support of HB 693. I believe parents should not lose their voice in their child's life without clear standards, real evidence, and due process. This issue can be emotional, and I understand that. Everyone wants what's best for their children. But the real question is, who gets to decide what best means and based on what standard and law? In my experience, I'm a firsthand witness, procedural tools were used in a way that allowed decisions to be made without findings of facts or conclusions of law. So even if protections like those in HB 693 are passed, we have to ensure they cannot be bypassed through procedural mechanisms that avoid accountability. When it comes to something as serious as life and life impacting as gender related decisions for a child those decisions should not be made based on opinion pressure or unclear standards They should be made carefully responsibly and with the full involvement of the parents the people who know and love their child the most In my own experience, I have seen what happens when decisions about a child are made without proper safeguards. There were no findings that I was unfit, no evidence of harm, and yet my role as a parent was still overridden. That's why this matters to me. HB 693 is about making sure that doesn't happen, not just to me, but to other families. It doesn't stop care, and it doesn't stop support. What it does is make sure that the major decisions in a child's life are made with clear standards, proper oversight, and respect for parental rights. Because parents should not be pushed aside in decisions that shape their child's future and children deserve decisions made with stability, consistency, and accountability, not confusion or conflicting authority. Parents have a fundamental right to the care and custody and education of their children, a right protected at both the state and the federal level. And that is why I respectfully ask you to support HB 693, also known as Affirming Family First Act. Thank you.

Thank you.