COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Whether transgender youth can receive gender-affirming care in Ohio continued to be debated at the Franklin County Court of Commons Pleas on Tuesday.
In its second day, the trial is questioning the constitutionality of the "Save Adolescents from Experimentation" Act, a measure vetoed by Gov. Mike DeWine before the legislature overruled that veto. If enacted, the law would ban minors from receiving gender-affirming care, and was supposed to go into effect in April but was put on hold by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Michael Holbrook, who is overseeing this trial.
On Tuesday, the plaintiff's called three witnesses to the stand, two of which were medical experts and one a father of a trans minor in Ohio.
Dr. Sarah Corathers testified that she has treated around 300 trans youth, and that her youngest patient to go on puberty blockers was ten years old, and her youngest patient to receive hormone therapy was 13. During questioning by the plaintiffs, she said she has had a small number of patients discontinue their treatment, about five or six, but noted none have expressed regret to her for going through the treatment.
"After a series of hundreds of encounters now with families in which we've gone through an informed consent discussion, we find together that the relative benefit of these therapies far outweighs the relative risk of these therapies," she said.
Michael Moe, who is going by a pseudonym and did not appear on camera as ordered by the judge for safety, also testified on Tuesday. Moe is the father of Madeline Moe, who is a trans girl going into the seventh grade. He said her gender dysmorphia started at a young age.
“She was saying things like ‘why did god make me like this?’” Moe said. “She was saying these things frequently over the course of first grade.”
Moe said he and his wife started noticing that Madeline was more interested in feminine things around three of four years old and testified the care available to Madeline in Ohio, and at risk of being outlawed, is imperative to her well-being. He said laws like the SAFE Act deny her “basic human rights.”
NBC4 also talked with Deputy Attorney General Erik Clark, who is arguing the defense in this case.
“I don’t think our role at all is to combat the plaintiffs in this case. Our role is to defend the constitutionality of the law that the general assembly passed with a supermajority,” Clark said. “What this trial will show through all of the experts in that it is a complicated picture and that the plaintiffs in this case have presented an oversimplified picture on the science.”
This is a bench trial so the decision to uphold or strike down the law will be up to the judge alone after hearing all arguments, not a jury. Judge Holbrook is a Republican, but Clark said party affiliation, and the fact that he put the initial injunction on the case, does not give him any pause.
“For any judge, regardless, when they’re faced with a request for an immediate emergency injunction, by definition they don’t have all the time they need to fully evaluate all the evidence, all the law, that’s why those decisions are preliminary and this is why we’re here today to actually get a final decision,” Clark said. “I don’t think that party affliction has anything to do with it and B that his initial decision indicates how this trial will conclude.”
