Sunday Deep-Dives, Issue I: The Historical Significance of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy
Alexandria Rose speaks to Cleveland DSA members Mackenzie F and Matt B, as well as President Sarah Kepple of Lakewood City Council, for a deep-dive into the historic Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy.
Intersex & Transgender Ohioans, as well as Drag Performers, enjoy civil rights and healthcare protections in Lakewood, Ohio, thanks to the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy. (Photo Credit: Valentino Vecchietti. Progress Pride Flag, 2021.)
LAKEWOOD, Ohio — Introduced by the Cleveland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and later revised and expanded by Lakewood City Council President Sarah Kepple and Councilmember Cindy Strebig, the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy (LGFP) is a sweeping piece of local legislation crafted in open defiance of Ohio’s restrictions on gender-affirming care.
Across the United States, state legislatures and federal agencies have advanced measures limiting transgender healthcare, bathroom access, and gender-expressive performances, including Ohio’s latest proposal, House Bill 249. In response, Lakewood has sought to blunt the impact of Senate Bill 104 and House Bill 68 through reduced enforcement priorities and changes to what health-related data city employees collect and report.
The LGFP marks a historic and unusually assertive declaration of local autonomy and human dignity, enshrining transgender rights amid mounting state-level attacks and offering a model other communities across Ohio may choose to follow.
The Climate of Retrenchment on Trans Rights
Upon taking office, President Donald Trump moved quickly to eliminate gender-inclusive language from federal documents and to redefine sex and gender as immutably linked “as determined at conception.” That directive reshaped federal policy across multiple agencies, including the placement of transgender inmates according to sex assigned at birth and the removal of the “X” gender marker from U.S. passports. Many transgender and nonbinary applicants have since been unable to update their gender markers. An early legal challenge in Massachusetts failed, according to the ACLU.
On January 28, 2025, Trump signed an executive order restricting federal funding and support for gender-affirming care. The order instructed federal health programs — including Medicaid and TRICARE — to exclude coverage for minors. Federal health websites and LGBTQ+ health guidance were also altered or removed. The HIPAA Journal reported on a lawsuit, Washington State Medical Association et al. v. Kennedy et al., brought in response to these directives; the suit was recently settled.
The administration has also targeted transgender participation in sports. Federal guidance now directs schools receiving federal funds to bar transgender girls and women from women’s sports and to prohibit federal funding from supporting policies that treat gender identity separately from sex assigned at birth. Schools have been warned against accommodating social transitioning. In tandem with decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court, Trump has also blocked transgender service in the armed forces. As Democracy Forward reported in July, federal agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, have been directed to deprioritize or decline investigations of discrimination claims based on gender identity, in line with Executive Order 14168.
State governments, particularly Ohio, have followed the administration’s lead. Ohio House Bill 68 banned gender-affirming care for minors, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-affirming surgeries. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost has defended the law. Senate Bill 104 restricted bathroom and locker-room access in K–12 schools and public universities to sex assigned at birth, and prohibited the construction or continued maintenance of gender-neutral facilities on college campuses.
House Bill 8, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in early 2025, requires schools to notify parents if a student identifies differently from their sex assigned at birth and allows parents to opt students out of certain gender or sexuality lessons. Advocates warn that the law forces schools to disclose information that may place transgender and gender-diverse youth at risk in unsupportive or hostile homes. DeWine’s Executive Order 2024-01D went further, proposing broad restrictions on gender-affirming care for both minors and adults; a move condemned by the ACLU of Ohio, which emphasized that such restrictions could endanger patients who rely on these treatments for basic health and post-operative care.
Viewed together, the volume and speed of anti-trans legislation enacted since 2024 is staggering, with much of the federal rollback beginning within Trump’s first week in office. These measures have coincided with a sharp rise in dehumanizing rhetoric targeting transgender people, especially youth and their families, from elected officials, commentators, and public figures. The modern trans-exclusionary movement is global, tracing significant ideological roots to the United Kingdom, where high-profile figures such as J.K. Rowling and Graham Linehan have used their platforms — and, in Rowling’s case, her wealth — to promote anti-trans campaigns, as reported by MSNBC.
Violence against women, both cisgender and transgender, has risen alongside the rhetoric. Assailants have attacked individuals based on perceived gender nonconformity. The Human Rights Campaign’s 2024 report, The Epidemic of Violence Against the Transgender & Gender-Expansive Community in the U.S., documents escalating violence disproportionately affecting transgender people of color, unhoused transgender people, and transgender sex workers. The crisis deepened in May 2025, when transgender teenager Charlotte Fosgate died by suicide after posting her final messages on Twitter, where right-wing figures, including StoneToss Comics, flooded the comments with abuse. (Readers should be advised that the comment threads are extremely disturbing.)
Amid this environment, a surge in violence, the normalization of hate speech, and sweeping legislative rollbacks, many transgender people, families, and human rights advocates describe 2025 as a year dominated by fear and exhaustion.
For Ohioans, the City of Lakewood now stands apart. The Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy, first drafted by the Cleveland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and expanded and shepherded into law through the work of Council President Sarah Kepple, Councilmember Cindy Strebig, and the full City Council, establishes Lakewood as a local refuge. Passed unanimously, 7–0, the LGFP asserts municipal autonomy in the face of state and federal retrenchment. For many, the policy represents one of the last firm lines of local defense against a rising tide of vitriol, violence, and government-sanctioned rollbacks of basic rights.
The Historical, Social, and Legal Significance of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy
City of Lakewood, Ohio. “Sarah Kepple”, “Cindy Strebig”. From Left To Right: Lakewood City Council President Sarah Kepple, At-Large, and Councilperson Cindy Strebig, Ward 3. In conjunction with the initial proposed legislation by Cleveland DSA, and review by Transgender rights advocacy groups such as Cleveland Stonewall Democrats, Kepple and Strebig served Lakewood’s public as the chief architects and supporters of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy.
The Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy (LGFP) safeguards the right of transgender people of all ages to access healthcare within the city. It does so in part by limiting what information healthcare providers and city employees may collect from patients, reducing the risk that sensitive data could be used to enforce state or federal bans. The policy also directs city personnel to treat enforcement of state and federal laws targeting drag performances, gender-affirming care providers, and any other present or future anti-trans legislation as the “lowest possible priority,” effectively shielding residents and practitioners from the reach of broader crackdowns.
Key Points of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy, Ken Shneck, The Buckeye Flame.
No city resources will be used for “detaining or investigating persons for solely seeking or providing gender-affirming care.”
No city resources will be used for “cooperating with or providing information to any individual, in or out-of-state agency or department” on gender-affirming healthcare or gender-affirming mental healthcare performed in Lakewood, a response to reports of the U.S. Department of Justice asking hospitals to turn over “sensitive information about transgender patients younger than 19.”
Investigations of individuals, organizations and businesses performing or hosting drag performances or non-obscene entertainment involving gender identity or expression will be the “lowest possible priority.”
Investigations of individuals, organizations and healthcare providers in Lakewood facilitating gender-affirming care will be the “lowest possible priority.”
Facilitation of other policies and laws aimed to harm transgender and gender-diverse people will be the “lowest possible priority.”
City employees will be trained to protect confidential health information and not collect unnecessary health information related to gender-affirming care.
The city will continue to provide medical coverage for employees and covered family members who seek gender-affirming care, “even if such care must legally be provided outside the State of Ohio.”
Working in tandem with Lakewood’s 2016 anti-discrimination ordinance, the LGFP expands protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations by explicitly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression. It affirms gender expression in schools and community spaces by banning harassment and safeguarding expressive activities, including drag performances. The policy also guarantees protections for city employees: Lakewood commits to providing gender-affirming care to its workers and contractors and prohibits discrimination against them on the basis of gender identity or expression. In addition, the city is barred from using any of its resources to investigate or prosecute individuals seeking or providing gender-affirming care.
This historic and unprecedented policy became possible through the work of multiple partners, including the Cleveland DSA’s Trans Rights Bodily Autonomy (TRBA) Priority Project, which drafted the initial legislation and presented it to Council President Sarah Kepple. I sat down with the TRBA leadership for a group interview, and later spoke by phone with Kepple, to discuss in depth the long road to the LGFP’s passage and the collaboration that brought this landmark policy to life.
The Perspectives of the architects of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy
In tracing the road to the passage of the LGFP, what begins as the story of a protective municipal policy becomes a broader account of organized resistance to restrictive, overreaching state and federal legislation. These are the stories as told by Lakewood City Council President Sarah Kepple, and by Cleveland DSA members Matt B. and Mackenzie F.
Alexandria Rose: “Can you describe the DSA mission in detail? What are the specific goals of the Trans Rights Bodily Autonomy Priority Project?
Mackenzie F: “The specific goals for the priority project itself are sanctuary cities in Lakewood as well as Cleveland. We work toward mutual aid events for each term and priority project renewal to continue this fight. Our projects are always authorized for 6 months. Term 1 began in January and ended in June. This new term covers July-December. We have our goal of expanding the sanctuary city count, but we must work within the parameters of our operating structure.”
Alexandria Rose: “How did this Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy come to be?”
Sarah Kepple: “Cindy Strebig and I have discussed for a long time, as we’ve been talking with trans community members, the mixed feelings about trans sanctuary city resolutions from other cities. Our main fears were that policies like this could draw unwanted attention toward the cities from the Ohio state government. Around that time, in May, Matt B sent the DSA draft. It was a pretty promising start.”
Kepple’s concern about unwanted attention is warranted. Ohio’s state government has chipped away at local home rule authority through various legislative actions, including restricting local control over issues like tobacco sales, gun safety measures, and local taxes.
Sarah Kepple: “Since we’re a charter community, we have a little bit of a different setup. We have home rule authority. The state house encroached on our home rule when it tried to pass legislation prohibiting rank choice voting. When we wrote the LGFP, we were facing a lot of issues around the authority and prioritizing of the use of our funds. A city cannot make legal something the state says is illegal. We can make laws more stringent, or less stringent. So, when the state says we have to investigate and enforce, we can say, the police will get to it, after they investigate every last lost dog, every last jaywalking case. We can set our own priorities and get rid of persecution tactics.”
“With the draft in hand, we had to find a way to ‘thread that needle’ of what we could achieve from a policy perspective. We reached out to trans community members and families, as well as the ADA Task force. ‘Nothing for us without us’ is an important call to accountability. Neither myself nor Cindy Strebig are trans, so we wanted to include trans Ohio in the review process. We wanted their expertise and feedback, as well as that of ACLU of Ohio, with whom we made contact with and brought in. We also wanted to get ahead of the anti-drag bills. It was important to incorporate protections against that legislation as well, so we reached out to community drag performers to include them. And we had to pull all that together into the final version.”
DSA:
Mackenzie F: A team of [DSA members] from the first term of the project reached out to ACLU and Civil Rights attorneys to draft the resolution, in its original language. Those members sent that document over to Matt B, who forwarded them to Sarah Kepple in April.
Matt B: “A week or so later, she [Kepple] wrote back and said “Hey, this looks good enough to put before council without any revisions from the law department! In June, at the first city council meeting, Lakewood City Council passed a resolution to formally recognize Pride. I went to city meetings to talk about our resolution to raise awareness and urgency, especially in spite of attacks on trans people.”
Alexandria Rose: “What obstacles did you face in the road, from draft to table, to passing?”
Sarah Kepple: “We had to involve multiple organizations to ensure we weren’t legislating in a way that wasn’t approved of by the communities we were seeking to protect. To that end, we needed to ensure that we reached out to multiple organizations, including DSA, Trans Ohio, Cleveland LGBT Center, and ACLU of Ohio. We reached out to Community members, namely a group of LGBT parents local to Lakewood. Local families have LGBT kids, so we talked to them as well. Some families have transgender children. We talked to the Harding Middle school pride club as well. It’s cumbersome, or it can be, to work with so many groups! But it’s worthwhile. We’re creating law, we want to ensure the language is accurate, and that a draft could stand up to challenge.”
“Council members are part time, so it’s hard to have the time to do this, as well as my time with surgery, which unfortunately threw me off my desired timeline. We are lucky we live in such a progressive area. Some folks who wanted this to happen have had an understanding of the bureaucratic process in order to create something that can actually provide some level of protection, hold up, and be replicable. The biggest challenge is time.”
“In learning from our reproductive healthcare policy, one of the things we did was make sure to include the policy for benefits to city employees, even if they must leave for out of state. We want to be prepared in the event the state criminalizes gender affirming care for adults.”
DSA:
Matt B: I reached out to the LGBT community center of Greater Cleveland about the measure. I also reached out to Trans Ohio. They worked on a similar resolution in Cleveland heights, which our resolution was based on. Mid June-July was highlighted by waiting for Sarah Kepple to get back to us on when this meeting would take place. In the meantime, we decided to get busy. We canvassed Lakewood to gather signatures on a petition, to get this resolution going now, and sort of highlight a sense of urgency. We ran 4 canvassing events in total, gathered around 800 paper signatures and about 300 online signatures. We went to Lakewood city council, said ‘Hey we’re still waiting for the meeting and to talk about this resolution.’
We’ve been going into the Lakewood community to educate and inform, these 1100 people want this to pass. In August, Lakewood city council was on recess. I got a text from Sarah Kepple saying ‘the resolution will be on the docket after the recess.’ It was put straight on, as three different pieces of legislation. This was the change from Trans Sanctuary City to Gender Freedom Policy. This solidified drag protection as well as city employee protection. So, it was good to hear back, and to see all the work done, but I think a big part of the obstacle was all the waiting. Of course, later I found out that Sarah Kepple had back surgery, and I sort of felt bad, for doubting the resolve of Lakewood city Council.”
Alexandria Rose: “Who benefits directly from the LGFP, and what has been the immediate impact?”
Sarah Kepple: “One of the most impactful things was seeing local youth coming to council meetings. We don’t typically have a lot of them there. It’s empowering for them to see some sort of elected officials showing up and speaking for them and protecting them. That’s impactful for us, when our community members who feel under attack, feel less welcome, turn out and watch us work.”
“This legislation makes people proud to live here. It certainly feels like it was not only the right thing to do, but was uplifting to our community. City employees needing care benefit, and still have access now. A lot of this work has been in anticipation of future state legislation, to protect people down the line.”
“We’ve already had other communities reach out, ACLU/Trans Ohio have also had requests. Other cities and organizations want copies of the LGFP and other resolution language as passed, so residents can benefit. The model is replicable elsewhere. Almost immediately after passing, I thought we could address the recent state budget, that could effectively erase library materials related to gender. It was removed, but it could certainly happen again. We want to be prepared.”What was proposed before did not have a criminal element to it, but was tied directly to library funding. That wouldn’t be able to be addressed in a policy, as its not an enforcement element.”
“Councilwoman Streibig and I have been looking at legislation with our youth council regarding gender neutral restrooms in new builds. We would like to make sure there are gender neutral bathrooms. We cannot make legal that which the state says is illegal, but we can say single-occupancy restrooms are necessary.”
DSA:
Matt B: “After canvassing, we noticed more and more regular community members started to become aware of the resolution and campaign, even at city hall meetings. Non-DSA members would also speak in favor of the resolution in public comment. The Lakewood community became very well aware of this resolution and was mostly in full support. That awareness is going to be key for Cleveland.”
“I am not used to praising politicians, but Sarah Kepple and Cindy Streibig were able to turn our resolution into protections for other segments of the population, and did it all in a way that was legal and attractive to other municipalities.”
Mackenzie F: “I would like to see this expand. Sarah Kepple has had additional cities reach out. I don’t think we have a good sense of where we go beyond Cleveland in term three of our project. We aren’t there yet, but we are thinking about the future. I really hope this legislation becomes precedent!”
“Part of the reason Lakewood was able to do what they did was because the language wasn’t changed significantly. The attacks on trans rights by the state were set in motion in 2023, after Roe V Wade. The format for protections pre-existed. Lakewood is a Charter community, their locality is a little bit different. Adjustments may need to be made, but for charter communities this could be something that, if the cities care enough, could be done across any city. At the end of the day, what it is is De-prioritization. This is much easier to do that counter-legislation.
Alexandria Rose: “What were the values at the heart of the Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy, and what lessons did you learn in the legislative path?”
Sarah Kepple: “We want Lakewood to be a place where everyone can live their lives as their authentic selves. We want to do what we can to make Lakewood safe, welcoming, and provide any level of protection we can. Specifically: Empathy, Community Support, Inclusion, Safety.”
“One of the things that was most interesting to me, we take for granted sometimes, we passed so many pro-LGBT resolutions and we’ve had a lot of community members come in and support that. We pride ourselves on pride here in Lakewood. Not everybody knows that history, or the values that we stand for. We think we talk about it all the time, and it’s important to keep talking. Some folks coming in for that particular legislation expect us to be adversaries. One of the things we think is important is to continue to reach out to community members. It’s important to make sure activated folks stay involved, and work on other ways to engage and partner with us. We’re always going to be stronger with all these different groups.”
“I’m always proactive about reaching out to the community, but bringing DSA into the fold on more projects, when we bring folks together, there’s more we can accomplish.”
DSA:
Solomon F: “I learned that people in Lakewood were so woke, and it’s great! I was canvassing and I noticed many people were very enthusiastic, not just Lakewood residents. No one had any vocal opposition. Some were indifferent. Some just wanted to go on about their day. Not a single clear voice of dissent.
Matt B: “I learned to balance speaking to public officials and mixing tones. For example, I kept reiterating the urgency in the context of the State and Federal Gov’t and its attacks on trans people. I maintained professionalism and cordiality. We wanted them to be allies and work with us, despite our opinions. We needed their support, needed their legislative capacity. I learned to balance pressuring and decorum. Things were radio silent from council’s end, and then Sarah Kepple texted 2 hours after about her surgery.”
Mackenzie F: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, balancing urgency with cordiality is important. I learned we need to be in the community. People respond so well when you’re in the community. People talk about loneliness, but we have an opportunity to put forward our vision of the world while we’re out there. I’m excited to see where we go with fundraising and mutual aid in future.”
Eliza D: “I learned the importance of having uninvolved membership that supports the project and puts their energy behind it. We could not accomplish this without them.”
Conclusion
The Lakewood Gender Freedom Policy represents more than just a local legislative victory. It is a moral and political statement of principle, declared in an era of increasing hostility toward transgender people. Lakewood’s stand proves that political progress, even in the face of rights retrenchment, can still emerge from grassroots causes when legislators are willing to seriously listen to the concerns of their constituents. By enshrining gender freedom into law, Lakewood has continued to uphold its image as a beacon of dignity and hope for all those who wish to live as their authentic selves.
“Passing the gender freedom policy, in such an inclusive way with so many stakeholders,” as Lakewood Council President Sarah Kepple offers in her closing remarks, “shows what’s possible when we band together, and make Lakewood a more accepting place for everyone to be their authentic selves.”
**Alexandria Rose is a new DSA member who joined the organization in mid-September, after the legislation was drafted, advocated for, and expanded upon. She had no involvement whatsoever with the project.**