Former President Donald Trump condemned Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for vetoing a bill that would have protected children from experimental transgender surgeries and hormonal interventions.
“DeWine has fallen to the Radical Left,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Saturday, vowing that he would no longer promote the Republican governor. “No wonder he gets loudly booed in Ohio every time I introduce him at rallies, but I won’t be introducing him any more.”
“I’m finished with this ‘stiff.’ What was he thinking,” Trump asked. “The bill would have stopped child mutilation, and prevented men from playing in women’s sports.”
“Legislature will hopefully overturn,” he added. “Do it FAST!!!”
DeWine, a Republican, framed his veto of House Bill 68 on Friday as an effort to bring consensus on a divisive issue and to avoid having the government decide what medical decisions are best for children. He also echoed the claims of pro-transgender activists that children will commit suicide if they don’t undergo so-called gender-affirming care, such as testosterone or estrogen injections or double mastectomies.
“Were House Bill 68 to become law, Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is best for a child than the two people who love that child the most, the parents,” DeWine said.
The bill, called the Enact Ohio Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, would bar physicians from performing gender-reassignment surgery on a minor and from prescribing cross-sex hormones or drugs to block puberty for the purpose of gender transition. It also would enable students to sue if they are deprived of a fair playing field in sports due to transgender activism and protect parents’ rights to raise their children according to their biological sex.
DeWine did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal. His actions come as a growing number of detransitioners, most of them young women, come forward to sue the doctors and therapists who propelled them along the path toward surgical and hormonal transition.
A detransitioner is someone who sought to change his or her gender through hormonal or surgical interventions and ultimately regretted the attempt, and returned to living as his or her biological sex. Detransitioners, such as activists Chloe Cole and Prisha Mosley, have testified emotionally before lawmakers about how attempting to transition has irrevocably changed their lives.
“Gov. DeWine’s political career is over,” tweeted Cole. “What a way to go out. Paid off by the medical lobby, which is insanely powerful in Ohio. Remember him for his desire to sterilize and mutilate children.”
Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis also weighed in on his fellow Republican governor’s veto, tweeting: “The Ohio legislature should override the veto done by Trump-endorsed Gov. DeWine. I’ve signed both of these bills — and I was right to do so. Girls should be able to compete with fairness and integrity in sports. And these procedures are irreversible and should not be allowed, period.”
Another GOP presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, also slammed the governor’s veto, tweeting: “Ohio Governor Mike DeWine just vetoed a simple law that would have stopped boys from competing in girls’ sports & stopped kids from undergoing genital mutilation & chemical castration. Even Ohio’s Lt. Governor @JonHusted favored passage of the bill. Shame on DeWine.”
Meanwhile, LGBTQ groups such as the Human Rights Campaign celebrated the governor’s veto.
“This bill would have banned gender-affirming care and banned trans youth from participating in school sports that match their identity,” the HRC said in a social media post. “This is a huge win for trans youth and their families in Ohio.”
Tyler O’Neill contributed to this report.
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