Ohio GOP reps propose new bill to protect parents who affirm biological design

The state of Ohio could implement protections for parents who affirm their child’s biological sex, according to a new bill introduced last week.

“This legislation is about protecting families from government overreach and ensuring parents are not punished for raising their children consistent with the biological reality,” Rep. Josh Williams, R-Sylvania Twp., said before the statehouse. “No parent should lose custody, face state intervention or be deemed unfit simply for affirming their child’s biological sex.”

The Affirming Families First Act, co-sponsored by Williams and Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, will “protect the innocence of our kids and the rights of our parents to raise them,” Williams said.

The act “…restores common sense to our child welfare and family law system by making clear that affirming biological sex is not abuse, neglect or contrary to a child’s best interest,” he said. “Instead, controlling how your children are raised, including affirming their biological sex, is a constitutionally protected fundamental right in the state of Ohio, and we will continue to protect it as a state.”

In 2018, Ohioan parents lost custody of a 17-year-old boy for refusing to affirm his gender-identity, Williams said. Since then, 19 states have created “safe havens” for kids to undergo gender transition treatment without parental consent. These state laws also allow judges to remove a child from a parent’s custody if that parent refused to support the child’s sex-transition, Williams said.

“It is unconscionable to think that local government entities would flag a parent as being a danger to their son for declining to buy him a dress or call him ‘her,’” Click said. “We will not tolerate such government overreach in the State of Ohio.”

The legislation would prohibit investigations into parents or guardians for merely affirming a child’s biological sex, as well as abolish policies that restrict these parents’ access to or decision-making for a child. Additionally, the bill would outlaw discrimination against foster-parents who refuse to affirm gender ideology.

Similarly, the bill would forbid the welfare system’s gender-identity and sexual orientation screening of children and abolish educational materials from organizations that deem parental protection of a child’s biological sex as “abusive.”

“Essentially, parents [do] not want their kids to be lured into the woke mob who would convince them to chemically castrate themselves or surgically alter their body,” Williams said. “This legislation is a simple fix to the pressures that are being put on our parents, our caregivers, our foster parents and our prospective adoptive parents to conform with the left’s agenda as it relates to our kids, sexuality and gender confusion. We are here to say enough is enough.”