House Bill 68, the so-called ‘Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act’, that would ban children, in Ohio, from getting gender affirming care, is currently being considered by the Ohio House Public Health Policy committee. SHoWLE President Douglas Berger submitted written testimony to oppose the bill:
Chairman Lipps, Vice Chair Stewart, Ranking Member Liston and members of the Ohio House Public Health Policy Committee, my name is Douglas Berger and I am President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I am writing today to express our opposition to House Bill 68, The Saving Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act.
We are dumbfounded how a bill that is based on a false narrative, fake evidence, and religious bigotry could even be under consideration.
Representative Gary Click, who sponsored this bad bill is a pastor of a church in Fremont and he mislead the committee when he claimed his religious beliefs weren’t the driving factor for this bill and he said he was following the science yet believes the debunked method of conversion therapy is a thing. Rep. Glick also fraudulently tried to equate social transition with genital mutilation.
We wouldn’t be shocked if the Christian Nationalist group Center for Christian Virtue wrote this bill for him.
A 2022 study estimates that about 0.5% of all U.S. adults, some 1.3 million people, and about 1.4%, or 300,000, of youth between 13- and 17-years-old identify as transgender, having a different gender identity than the sex they were assigned at birth.
Polling also indicates that majority of people oppose discriminating against Trans people. House Bill 68 is discrimination pure and simple and we are sad and disappointed that this bigotry is even being considered. Don’t let a small minority of religious bigots use the power of the state to impose their religion on others.
We ask that you vote against this bill and let parents in Ohio support their children.