The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on WCPO.com under a content-sharing agreement.
The Zingarelli family saw the writing on the wall in Missouri and knew it would only be a matter of time until the legislature enacted a bill that would prevent doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.
That was one of the reasons why the family moved back to Ohio in 2022, but now a similar bill is sitting on Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s desk.
“I really felt like Ohio was better than this,” Nick Zingarelli, 44, said. “I believe that the people that live in Ohio are better than this. I believe that this is not something that Ohioans want.”
House Bill 68 would prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care to trans youth, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The bill, introduced by Rep. Gary Click, R-Vickery, would also prevent trans athletes from participating in Ohio women’s sports.
HB 68 passed the Ohio House and Senate last week. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine received the bill Monday and has until Dec. 29 to either veto or sign the bill into law, said DeWine’s press secretary Dan Tierney. Even if DeWine vetoes the bill, a three-fifths vote of the members of the House and the Senate would override the governor’s veto.
“There is absolutely no reason to change something that works,” Zingarelli said. “They are fixing something that is not only not broken, but it is functioning perfectly.”
Zingarelli family
Nick Zingarelli was born and raised in Ohio, but moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2019 to be closer to his wife’s family. Their 14-year-old daughter came out as transgender in December 2020.
“She’s a happy kid,” Zingarelli said. “She’s in the marching band. She plays video games. … Being transgender happens to be one of the things that is part of who she is.”
She started seeing a counselor regularly and met with a pediatric endocrinologist. But then Missouri’s legislature started introducing anti-transgender legislation that would block gender-affirming care.
“It’s stressful,” Zingarelli said. “You’re just waking up every day wondering if today is going to be the day that one of these bills gets passed.”
Missouri’s governor signed a bill into law over the summer that blocks trans youth from accessing puberty blockers, hormones, and gender-affirming surgeries. But the Zingarellis didn’t wait until the bill was signed into law and moved back to Ohio in the spring of 2022.
“It just felt like the intensity was growing,” he said. “It felt like a foregone conclusion that one of these bills was going to pass. And we were right.”
They relocated to Cincinnati, where they had been living before they moved to Missouri.
“It’s home,” Zingarelli said. “We also saw Ohio as being a more moderate and a more politically reasonable place than Missouri. We saw Missouri as being a more extremist state. We really did believe that moving back here that we would not encounter the same level of political aggression that existed in Missouri.”
It’s been disappointing, he said, to see similar legislation be introduced by Ohio lawmakers.
“It’s clear that there is a disconnect between what Ohioans want and what our elected representatives are pushing forward,” he said.
“We’re fighting for all of the kids”
His daughter is treated by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, so she would be able to continue receiving care under the grandfather clause that was added to the bill that would allow doctors who already started treatment on patients to continue.
“That’s great that protects her,” he said. “But what about all the other kids who are at different stages in their journey? … We’re fighting for all of the kids out there, not just for individual rights. … The only thing that it will do is chase people out of the state or prevent them from moving here altogether.”
Gender-affirming care is supported by every major medical organization in the United States. Children’s hospitals across Ohio, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association and the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians all oppose HB 68.
“We can only hope that our governor trusts the science, trust the doctors, and trust the parents to make the decisions that are best for their children,” he said.
If DeWine vetoes the bill, Zingarelli hopes that would cause Republicans lawmakers to reconsider their stance.
“If they didn’t listen to the screams of so many people before saying this is wrong, I hope that they would listen to the elected leader of this state that is from their party,” he said.
He said they’ve thought about leaving Ohio if HB 68 becomes law, but they don’t want to move away from Cincinnati, a sanctuary city for gender-affirming care.
“We will not be chased out, unless we are left with no other choice but to do so,” he said. “But we will do whatever we have to do in order to support our child to be her true self.”
