The Ohio House GOP folded hundreds of changes into the two-year state budget Tuesday, including several non-fiscal items further legislating sex and gender issues.
One amendment lawmakers added in says the state will recognize “only two sexes, male and female, which are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” according to the text of House Bill 96.
“It conforms with federal law, and it’s common sense we codify that into law and put this behind us,” Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said Tuesday afternoon. “It’s like saying the world is round instead of flat, and we think it was warranted to be in the code, so we can put that kind of discussion behind us.”
The wording of that amendment is identical to a recent federal executive order signed when President Donald Trump first reassumed the role.
When asked why the provision was put in the state’s fiscal document, House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) echoed Stewart on the need to end debate over sex and gender, saying putting a provision in the budget “prevents months and months” of it.
“It’s accepted science that there are two genders. If there’s some exception to that, I don’t think that means that those folks are going to lose their rights,” Huffman said Wednesday.
The amended language under consideration refers directly to sex, rather than gender, though. A tiny fraction, less than 2%, of people worldwide are born with intersex traits—meaning they have a combination of male and female chromosomes or mixed genitals and other sex organs, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
“Those folks should come in and testify about the bill, then, the folks at the Cleveland Clinic you’re talking about,” Huffman said.
As amended, HB 96 bars any state agencies from flying flags that are not the official state, American or POW MIA flags. Under another change, public libraries statewide are prohibited from having sexual orientation or gender identity content where minors would easily be able to view it.
House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) said she thinks the broader budget is “terrible.”
“This is a bunch of red meat for some of their members and it’s a distraction from all the stuff that they aren’t actually doing,” Russo said Wednesday.
House Finance committee members will continue to vet the amendments in hearings this week and early next, with a full floor vote tentatively scheduled Wednesday. Then, the budget heads to the Senate, with a deadline of June 30.
