This article first appeared on the Buckeye Flame

Let’s face it: 2024 ended pretty terribly for LGBTQ+ Ohioans. 

On December 19, Ohio’s Republican lawmakers passed a bill that will force teachers and school staff to out LGBTQ+ youth and limit the mentions of LGBTQ+ identity in school curricula. 

This 11th-hour blitz capped off a two-year legislative session that saw Republican lawmakers advance a national trend to restrict the lived experience of LGBTQ+ individuals, and specifically transgender youth. Bills passed into law included:

• PASSED: Bill to ban gender-affirming care for minors. (HB 68)
• PASSED: Bill to forcibly out LGBTQ+ youth to their families. (HB 8)
• PASSED: Bill to limit LGBTQ+ mentions in K-12 school curricula. (HB 8)
• PASSED: Bill to ban trans individuals from multi-person restrooms in kindergarten through college. (HB 183)
• PASSED: Bill to ban trans female athletes from competition in kindergarten through college.  (HB 68)

Even as someone who spends his daily life immersed in the text of these bills and their consequences on LGBTQ+ Ohioans, I feel overwhelmed when reading this laundry list assault on our community. 

With 2024 coming to a close, we have only a few weeks break before Ohio’s lawmakers reconvene. During this brief breather, let’s look at the year ahead and what it holds for LGBTQ+ Ohioans. Five questions immediately spring to mind. 

In addition to the above bills passed into law, Ohio Republicans also introduced the following:

• PROPOSED: Bill to ban drag performances in public. (HB 245)
• PROPOSED: Bill to ban library books with “objectionable” content. (HB 622)
• PROPOSED: Bill to charge teachers and school librarians with a felony for displaying “obscene” material. (HB 556)
• PROPOSED: Bill to allow public schools to employ unlicensed chaplains to provide support, services and programs for students. (HB 240)
• PROPOSED: Prohibit public college from using preferred pronoun applications. (HB 686)
• PROPOSED: Bill to allow any Ohioan to protest the eligibility of any candidate for office, specifically introduced expand challenges of trans candidates. (HB 471)

In looking at the anti-LGBTQ+ legislative activity in other states, Ohio Republicans are sure to continue introducing anti-LGBTQ+ bills. Here are the most likely areas of concern:

• Further criminalize affirming teachers and school staff: The bills above that ban “objectionable” and “obscene” content will most certainly be back, with just as vague language as previous iterations. Also keep an eye out for a ban on non-United States/Ohio flags in the classroom.
• Restricting gender-affirming care for adults: Pastor Rep. Gary Click (R-Vickery) is already on the record saying that banning all gender-affirming care – from hormones to gender-affirming surgeries – is the endgame, advocating for “small bites” to inch closer to this goal. The next small bite is most certainly coming. 
• Limits on Prides: Several local Ohio municipalities attempted (unsuccessfully) in 2024 to restrict LGBTQ+ orgs’ ability to pull permits for Pride events. We fully expect the proposed ban on public drag to return – which would forever alter the face of Pride celebrations – along with possible legislation to make it easier for local governments to deny Pride permits.  

Over the past two years, a host of LGBTQ+ equality bills were introduced, including legislation to:

• Establish LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections, currently not provided in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodations (the Fairness Act). (HB 524 & SB 132)
• Create marriage equality, currently prohibited in the Ohio Constitution, but federally recognized…for now (HB 636)
• Ban conversion therapy statewide (HB 220)
• Recognize June as Pride Month (HB 225)
• Modernize and decriminalize Ohio’s HIV laws (HB 498 & HB 513)
• Create an exemption for trans candidates to not have to list their deadnames on election materials. (HB 467)

But whereas anti-LGBTQ+ Ohio bills received a combined 44 hearings, LGBTQ+ equality bills received eight. And only one of those bills – the bill to create the exemption for trans candidates – made it past a first hearing, and was responsible for three of the eight hearings overall. 

We should celebrate that it has taken decades of work to finally have an HIV decriminalization bill heard in the Statehouse, but we should also recognize that the Fairness Act – actually introduced now for decades – somehow advanced even less further in 2024 than it had in years past. 

Yes, the introduction of such bills undoubtedly increases awareness. But it’s also low-key embarrassing to not be able to get to a second hearing on a bill as basic as declaring June as Pride Month – when the legislature recently easily passed “Food Allergy Awareness Month,” “Lupus Awareness Month,” “Older Ohioans Month,” “Hindu Heritage Month” and “Ukraine Independence Day.”

That said, we expect our Sisyphean Democratic lawmakers to start rolling some rainbow boulders up the legislative hill in 2025.

In 2023, LGBTQ+ Ohioans repeatedly gathered outside the Statehouse to shout their disapproval during anti-LGBTQ+ hearings, frequently disrupting proceedings and visibly frustrating lawmakers.

In 2024, queer activism seemed more quiet, but no less active. LGBTQ+ Ohioans flooded Gov. DeWine’s voicemail to urge him to veto the trans bathroom ban, held enormously well-attended legal clinics to assist trans Ohioans with name-change processes and submitted testimony by the truckload to try to stem the tide of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. 

With a second Trump presidency on the way – along with his stated promise to target trans Americans on his first day in office – Ohio’s queer activism will likely be in defense mode for the foreseeable future. 

That said, a few weeks back, over 100 LGBTQ+ organizations across the state published a joint open letter to LGBTQ+ Ohioans with a message of, “We are with you.”

Our hope is that these orgs can work together even more in 2025 to exercise some collective power to help create a more viable state to live in for LGBTQ+ Ohioans. 

2024 saw over 130(!) LGBTQ+ Pride events all across the state. From record-breaking attendance numbers in Cleveland, to a first-time Pride in Lebanon, to a heck of a lot of Pride drama in Brecksville/Broadview Heights, LGBTQ+ and ally Ohioans stood proudly together to send a message that every community has LGBTQ+ neighbors with the right to be seen and heard.

As Pride planning has already begun, we’re excited to learn the location of the next first-time Pride. If your local community has an inaugural Pride in the works, tell us!

We know it can sometimes be hard to see it, but there was quite a bit of queer joy to be found in 2024 here in Ohio. 

From stages across Ohio performing The Prom, to a groundbreaking lesbian comic getting her flowers, to a pair of gays building community through plants, LGBTQ+ Ohioans found time to not just survive, but celebrate our queer identities. 

No, 2024 was not an easy ride. But we moved forward together. And that has kept the Flame burning bright. 

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Ken Schneck is the Editor of The Buckeye Flame. He received the 2021 Sarah Pettit Memorial Award for the LGBTQ Journalist of the Year from the NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists. He is the author of “Seriously, What Am I Doing Here? The Adventures of a Wondering and Wandering Gay Jew” (2017), “LGBTQ Cleveland” (2018), “LGBTQ Columbus” (2019), and “LGBTQ Cincinnati” (2020). In his spare time, he is a professor of education at Baldwin Wallace University.