The Ohio Way – Trans Allies of Ohio

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The Ohio Way*

HEALTHCARE FOR TRANSGENDER CHILDREN

*The Ohio Way was ABOLISHED when the Ohio House and Ohio Senate overrode Governor DeWine's Veto of HB 68

The Ohio Way means trusting the very same world-ranked Ohio Children's Hospitals and doctors we trust for every other pediatric mental and medical healthcare condition.

Ohio is home to 9 world-class children’s hospitals. Two are ranked in the top 6 hospitals in the United States:

Cincinnati Children’s is #1 in the nation.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital is #6

We also are home to: Akron Children’s, Cleveland Clinic Children’s, Dayton Children’s, Rainbow Babies and Children’s, Shriner’s Children’s, Toledo’s Children’s and Mercy Health Children’s.

Our pediatric hospitals are a jewel in Ohio’s portfolio, drawing employers, workers, students, researchers, doctors, and children in need of care to Ohio from around the world.

At times, we take for granted we have world-class pediatric hospitals within a few hours drive of every family in Ohio. When we need them for our kids struggling with both familiar (flu, asthma, cancer) and rare (skeletal dysplasias, Fanconi anemia) we trust them with our children’s lives.

Why wouldn’t we trust them with the lives of our transgender children?

The Ohio Way means psychosocial support as a first line of treatment for children experiencing gender dysphoria and reserving puberty blockers and hormones for rare and extreme cases.

ALL 9 of our trusted Children’s Hospitals support counseling and screening for other mental and physical health conditions as the first line of treatment for gender dysphoric youth.

Each child is cared for by a multi-disciplinary team including pediatricians, endocrinologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and family therapists who are trained in differential diagnosis (sorting through and testing for multiple potential diagnosis and symptoms before choosing an initial plan of care.) These doctors monitor children carefully for side effects, adjusting treatment as necessary.

Less than 20% of pediatric patients receive puberty blockers and/or hormone treatment.

Children in Ohio who do receive gender affirming medical care (puberty blockers and hormones) are extreme cases, and our hospitals are well-equipped to treat these patients using the least invasive treatment options.

None of Ohio pediatric hospitals support or perform surgeries on youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

The Ohio Way means preserving parental rights and trusting parents to consider their child's doctors' recommendations and other readily available data when making intimate family healthcare decisions. READ PARENT TESTIMONY HERE.

Ohio parents of transgender children and their trusted Ohio doctors are well aware of the studies, often pushed by religiously affiliated groups or those who believe a trans identity is delusional, that advise against the use of puberty blockers and hormones.

Ohio parents , with the support of their child’s doctor and psychologists, are more than capable of the task of sifting through opinions and data to determine the right course of treatment option for their child.

Over 500 Ohio citizens gave testimony supporting the need for Ohio’s whole-child approach to care for transgender youth. These witnesses included Ohio parents of transgender children, their families, and others who know and care about them.

https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/135/hb68/committee

The Ohio Way is a conservative treatment protocol supported by every major medical organization in the United States, Ohio doctors, and healthcare providers. READ THEIR TESTIMONY AND STATEMENTS HERE.

Healthcare provider testimony from Ohio included:

Ohio Psychological Association

Ohio Hospital Association

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

Ohio Academy of Family Physicieans

Ohio Counseling Association

Equitas Health

Akron Children’s Hospital

National Association of Social Workers

Cleveland Clinic

Public Childen’s Services Association of Ohio

Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Ohio Psychiatric Association

Ohio Medical Association

Ohio Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Clintonville Counseling and Wellness

Cleveland Clinic Children’s

UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s

The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health Providers

National Healthcare Providers who support comprehensive gender-affirming care:

Against Medical Advice (AMA)

No matter what the reason, AMA patients are high-risk. Practitioners are wise to take a calm and reasoned approach to the AMA patient. Failure to do so can spell medical tragedy for the patient and malpractice disaster for the practitioner. Should a case come to litigation, the outcome will hinge on what was said, done, and documented when the patient left the ED or hospital, especially AMA.

The Sullivan Group (1)

On April 23, 2024

Children across Ohio will be discharged from their treatment plans
WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT
AGAINST MEDICAL ADVICE

Help your representative assume liability

Against Medical Advice Waiver Form

Discharge against medical advice (AMA):

Defined as the act of leaving the hospital before the treating physician recommends discharge.

Less than 2% of patients leave the hospital AMA in the US, but these patients cause major problems for practitioners, their communities, and pose a risk to themselves. AMA patients have a 12X higher risk of costly re admissions and a greater likelihood of death within the next 12 months.

Documentation in a patient’s chart and signed waivers of what was said and done is critical.

Below is our documentation of the information provided to Ohio Lawmakers prior to their HB 68 Veto Override which forcibly discharged our children from their healthcare treatment plans AMA without parental consent.

These lawmakers, without medical training, without reading our children’s charts, without having examined them or speaking to their mental health care providers, without exception, forced these children into a model of care that assumes transgender people are simply mentally ill, with ZERO evidence showing that psychological care alone is effective treatment for gender dysphoria.

Let’s take a look at the evidence they WERE given–the evidence they dismissed based on the recommendations of a handful of “medical providers” and a chorus of, in Brenner’s own words, “Right wing media” and social media posts.

(1) The Sullivan Group

STUDIES SUPPORTING THE OHIO WAY PROVIDED TO OHIO LAWMAKERS

Ohio Senator Brenner told the Senate he had not received any studies that back up The Ohio Way of providing healthcare for transgender children. This lie contributed to the passage of HB 68 in the Ohio Senate.

As an organization supporting families of transgender children we would like to point out that requiring parents to convince politicians that the care they choose for their children is medically necessary is ridiculous at best and dangerously authoritarian at its worst.

Regardless, parents, doctors, hospitals, healthcare workers and advocates DID provide these studies. They were dismissed or ignored wholesale by politicians with zero medical training.