Ohio is Messing With Transgender Applicants for Elected Office
An obscure rule is being used to nullify attempts by trans people to run for office in Ohio.
by Alyssa Steinsiek
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, vile transphobia is being done by the Republican majority Ohio state legislature! Though trans Ohioans are trying to fight back via the electoral system, they’re being stymied by an old, rarely enforced rule for political hopefuls.
First, some context:
In early December of 2023, the Ohio state legislature passed HB 68, an anti-trans document not unlike what we’ve seen in Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and several other Republican dominated states. The two-pronged assault on trans rights in these bills are typically as follows:
First, a ban on trans healthcare for minors. Transition for minors usually means social changes like wearing different clothes and adopting a new name and pronouns. Signifiers for gender before puberty are primarily non-biological, like long hair or painted nails, and exploring your gender identity at this precocious age is a simple affair. Once puberty begins, however, a trans minor—under advisement by a medical professional and in the care of their guardian or guardians—may start taking puberty blockers, to stave off unwanted physical changes while they continue to work out their wants and needs. Blockers are completely safe, and from there a gender questioning teen can choose to stop taking blockers and resume normal puberty, or start taking cross-sex hormones.
Second, the outright banning of transgender girls from competing on the correctly gendered teams in gender segregated sports, which would currently violate federal Title IX protections, despite Republican’s best efforts in April of 2023.
When HB 68 landed on Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s desk last Friday, he vetoed it. Defending the veto, Governor DeWine insisted that such decisions should be “made by the child, the child’s parents, and a team of medical professionals.” He said that parents of trans children had told him without the care that would be banned by HB 68, their children would have taken their own lives, and that vetoing the bill was “a matter of saving lives.”
This isn’t the first time Governor DeWine has made moves in opposition to transphobic Ohioan lawmakers. In June of 2021, he made it clear that he wouldn’t sign any bill that appeared on his desk containing blanket sports bans for trans athletes, stating that the issue was “best addressed outside of government, through individual sports leagues and athletic associations, including the Ohio High School Athletic Association, who can tailor policies to meet the needs of their member athletes and member institutions.”
Unfortunately, Ohio House Republicans have cut their winter break short to return and vote to override Governor DeWine’s veto. It’s unclear at this time whether or not they can muster the manpower necessary to force HB 68 through. It is clear, however, that their commitment to bigotry is near unparalleled.
Speaking of government mandated bigotry, trans Ohioans sick and tired of Republican state legislators gunning for their civil liberties have started running for office in Ohio’s various districts… but it seems like they may not make it far, thanks to an anachronistic rule on the books regarding running for office in Ohio under a changed name.
Vanessa Joy, a trans woman who was seeking to compete for office as a democrat in Ohio House District 50, has been disqualified for failing to dead name herself on petitions for her election.
That’s right! In Ohio, since 1995, if you’ve had your name legally changed within the last five years, you’re required to list prior legal names on any petition on which you are running for public office. At a glance, a misguided cis person might see this as a means of avoiding some form of electoral fraud. In reality, much like horrendously outdated newspaper publication rules during a legal name change, publicly linking your dead name to the name you go by now is hurtful and dangerous for transgender people.
Were Joy to publicly disclose her dead name, it would be used as ammunition by every bad actor under the sun to hurt her.
Besides the obvious privacy and safety risks associated with this requirement, it’s also obscenely rude. It just isn’t anybody’s business, and I can’t personally find any evidence that an Ohioan political candidate has had to disclose a marital name change on their ballot petition. But it’s easier to apply these sorts of rules unequally to harm trans people.
It remains to be seen whether or not the other three known trans House candidates in Ohio will be disqualified or forced to dead name themselves publicly, but it’s impossible to deny that these sorts of cheap tricks used to keep marginalized people out of politics are as vicious as they are dated. It’s blatant proof that Republican lawmakers are terrified of trans people being lawfully elected and representing their trans constituents in state politics.
We can only hope that decent legislators speak out against this disgusting state mandated transphobia, and that more trans people in Ohio and elsewhere are given the power to protect our community from those who want to suffocate us with targeted, harmful laws like HB 68.
Alyssa Steinsiek is a professional writer and video games nerd who hails from Appalachia but lives, laughs, loves in Rapid City.