“We’re on the front lines at the Ohio Statehouse, where we work to protect our community and to ensure that folks are able to live happy, healthy lives. The recent budget bills passed by the Ohio House and Senate have numerous anti-LGBTQ+ provisions. Provisions that would defund homeless shelters for affirming LGBTQ+ youth, prohibit Medicaid coverage for behavioral health services for transgender people, require sex assigned at birth [as opposed to legal sex] to be listed on people’s IDs, and more have no place in the state operating budget. This should be a fiscal bill, but it’s been overrun with social issues. 

I envision an Ohio where everyone is welcome, where everyone can get access to the medical care that they need, and where everyone can feel at home. After all, Ohio should be home – it’s supposed to be the heart of it all, right? 

But these controversial proposals impact all of us. For instance, we’re talking about funding an administrative overhaul of the state ID system. And, for what? The sole purpose of this proposal – along with the steep financial costs that come with it – is to target and ‘out’ transgender people. Only 1% of Ohio’s population identifies as transgender, but this is a huge monetary commitment from the state. Spending hard-working Ohioans’ tax dollars on this just isn’t the right thing to do, and it’s definitely not fiscally responsible. The reality is that the majority of Ohioans want their tax dollars to be spent more appropriately, and they want elected officials to legislate about issues that actually affect their day-to-day lives. 

But, there is hope. As a trans woman with a career in public policy, I find it energizing to see so many other women also coming to work in the Ohio Statehouse and the US Congress. And ultimately, I’m always going to approach my work by assuming that every elected official – regardless of whether I personally agree with them or not – is trying to do better and to put some type of good out in the world.”  

– Dr. Rhea Debussy is the Director of External Affairs for Equitas Health, a nonprofit community healthcare system and one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS-serving organizations, serving tens of thousands of patients in Ohio, Texas, Kentucky, and West Virginia.