Ohio & Mahoning Valley - Exactly one week after announcing a veto of a bill that would ban gender affirming care for minors and ban transgender individuals from competing in women's sports in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine held another press conference where he announced the progress on certain rules for gender affirming care.

During a Friday morning press conference, Governor DeWine says he still feels "just as firmly" on the bill as he did last week, but he announced some regulations and restrictions on gender affirming care.

DeWine announced the progress on rules he's drafted with the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) as well as the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services to make sure this gender affirming care is properly regulated.

Firstly, DeWine announced protections from "fly-by-night" clinics.

"I am concerned that there could by 'fly-by-night' providers and clinics that might be dispensing medication to adults with no counseling and no basic standards to ensure quality care. With the rules we are announcing to day, that will take care of that," DeWine said.

DeWine announced that he will be requiring a multi-disciplinary team to support an individual through care including, but not limited to an endocrinologist, a bioethicist and a psychiatrist.

Additionally, DeWine announced that he will be requiring doctors to inform all patients, as well as their parents if the patient is a minor of the effects and risks involved with gender affirming care and that patients must go through extensive counseling before being considered for any further treatment.

"It's clear that the most important part is the mental health counseling. It needs to be lengthy and it needs to be comprehensive. I want to emphasize that," DeWine said.

DeWine went on to announce rules to require health care providers across Ohio to report "de-identify data" on cases of gender dysphoria in Ohio to protect the privacy of Ohioans.

"In plain English, that means that no one will be able to look at the data and tell who it is. We do this all the time to protect privacy." 

"De-identify data" is used in numerous other cases including the flu, food poisoning and abortions.

Finally, DeWine announced that he has just signed an executive order effective immediately to ban gender transition surgery for minors at any hospital or surgical facility in Ohio.

"I know that's been one of the concerns that's been expressed. I've never disagreed with that," DeWine says.

DeWine says there is little evidence that these surgeries on minors are actually occurring in Ohio, but this is simply to make sure it could never happen in the future.

Last week, DeWine explained that the primary reason he did not support the bill was that he had spoken to parents whose children have transitioned, as well as those who transitioned themselves and concluded that the consequences of this bill would be "profound."

"Parents have looked me in the eye and have told me if not for this treatment, their child would be dead," DeWine said.

Following last week's veto announcements, Ohio Republicans such as Representative Al Cutrona and Senator Mike Rulli criticized DeWine's decision and said they will be working to override the veto.

Opponents like Cutrona argued that minors are not in the right mindset to make these sorts of decisions before.

"To have them make life-altering changes at a vulnerable age at six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old, absolutely not. They are not in the right mindset to do that," Cutrona said.

21 News caught up with Buckeye Flame editor Ken Schneck who says there is still a lot that is unknown about this bill and the possible restrictions it would impose and that DeWine hosted this conference before the previously mentioned rules were approved due to the House reconvening next week.

Schneck says this has created a lot of uncertainty in the community on issues such as exactly how much counseling will be needed before gender affirming care is given.

"There was reference to the amount of counseling and bio-ethical counseling and a comprehensive care plan. That hasn't been published yet, so there are a lot of folks that are appropriately flipped out about how this will affect gender affirming care in Ohio, not just for minors, but also for adults, and a lot of that angst that is being created is because the rules haven't been published yet," Schneck said.

Another concern raised by Schneck was in regards to the rule about the multi-disciplinary team including an endocrinologist, a bioethicist and a psychiatrist being required to support individuals through care.

Schneck says some folks might not have access to certain types of physicians so this could impact their ability to receive gender affirming care.

"Not every provider has all three of those folks on their care teams, particularly in some rural areas of Ohio where this gender affirming care goes through all vetted medical procedures, that doesn't automatically code to there being a bioethicist and the other folks ... on their care team," Schneck said.

21 News also caught up with Senator Rulli who says he is very confident that both the House and Senate have enough support to override the Governor's veto.

"As far as the Ohio Senate goes, we have plenty of votes to have the governor override, and I believe the House does too. This bill will be override," Rulli said.