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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIndiana House Republicans on Monday approved a bill that would ban all gender-transition care for minors in the state, sending the measure to Indiana’s Republican governor.
The House advanced the ban 65-30 after contentious hearings that primarily featured testimony from vocal opponents. The bill would prohibit transgender youth under 18 from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and surgeries in the state.
“This is good public policy to protect our children from irreversible, harmful, life-altering procedures,” bill sponsor Indiana Rep. Joanna King of Middlebury said ahead of Monday’s vote.
In many U.S. states, lawmakers are approving or considering laws that target transgender health care and limit competitions open to trans athletes.
At least nine states have enacted laws restricting or banning some forms of gender-transition care for minors: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, Tennessee, Utah and South Dakota. A proposed ban is pending before West Virginia’s governor, while federal judges have blocked enforcement of laws in Alabama and Arkansas.
Opponents of the Indiana bill said the most commonly used treatments banned in the bill—hormone therapies puberty blockers—are often life-saving for trans children. But supporters of the bill have voiced concerns about those treatments, despite testimony from medical providers who said they are safe and reversible.
“When I started hormone therapy, it made me feel so much better about myself,” said Jessica Wayner, 16, at a House public health committee hearing earlier this month.
Supporters of the bill voiced concerns about those treatments.
Xandra Roberts testified at the public health committee hearing that she detransitioned after living for 10 years as a man. Roberts says she feels lingering effects of testosterone, like facial hair growth.
“Too many kids are losing body parts and causing irreversible harm to their bodies and minds,” said Roberts, who was 26 when she began testosterone.
Hospital representatives testified that the treatments available to minors are safe and reversible, while surgical procedures that are harder to undo aren’t currently offered to minors anyway.
Now the bill goes to Gov. Eric Holcomb, who hasn’t said if he’ll sign it or veto it. The bill will also become law if he does neither.
When asked about the bill on March 17, he said “In general, parents not only have a right to their children’s health and well-being, they, in fact, have the responsibility of it.”
Last year, Holcomb vetoed a bill banning transgender students from competing in girls school sports that has since become law after Republican legislators voted to override his action.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued to overturn the law but dropped the case when the lead plaintiff, a 10-year-old transgender girl, transferred to a charter school.
On Monday, the ACLU of Indiana urged Holcomb to veto the healthcare legislation and promised legal action if it becomes law.
“Politicians harm us all when they ignore medical judgment and block access to standard care in favor of discriminatory fearmongering,” said ACLU spokesperson Katie Blair.
Republican Reps. Ed Clere of New Albany and Jerry Torr of Carmel joined all 28 Democrats present in voting against the bill.
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In response to the legislation, Gov. Holcomb said, “in general, parents not only have a right to their children’s health and well-being, they, in fact, have the responsibility of it.” If this legislation becomes law with the governor’s signature, parents will lose their right to the responsibility the governor says that have.
They’ll have the responsibility to leave Indiana
More reasons to leave Indiana. Despite its positive aspects, the negative is tipping the balance. For a party, the GOP specifically, which allegedly prides itself on ‘less’ government, this bill among others inserts government where it need not be — in private and personal aspects. This certainly will negatively impact parents and individuals under 18, but the burn-down-the-house bunch do not care. This is not about concern for children, this is about cultism in seeking the gold star of so-called conservatism. Parents along with their professional medical advisors should make decisions about their children’s health, both physical and mental. This should not be legislated. Shame on Rep. Joanna King.
This weekend, after one of their acolytes shot up her former Christian school and killed six people, the trans community is planning a “Day of Vengeance” march in Washington. Vengeance for what? That many newspapers initially misgendered the shooter by calling her female?
Few things more hilarious than thinking the “so-called conservatism” are the ones gripped by a cult.
Derek: as recently as ten years ago, 99.999% of the population wouldn’t have given a second thought to the statement, “Men are not women.” By 2022, you could get suspended from social media and potentially lose your job for saying this exact statement.
Pretending that the trans-trend is something other than mass psychosis (akin to the epidemic of anorexic teenaged girls in the 1990s) is hilarious. It’s pure social contagion from the political wing usually pushing such movements.
Parents raising “theybies” aren’t doing this in the interest in their children. They want to look fashionable within their peer groups. And their own kids, to whom they’re incentivizing or even imposing gender confusion, are their props. Remember “I Am Jazz”? “She” has had a phallectomy and orchidotomy, is now morbidly obese, and is admitting that “she” doesn’t feel like this is the right decision.
Why parents in their 30s and 40s are so fixated with seeming hip is anyone’s guess. But their kids are paying the price.
Suicide rates for transgendered people–even in a culture more devoted to “affirming” them than ever in history and one where voicing disapproval can get you cancelled–are still well over 40%.
Why aren’t surgery and hormones the last resort rather than the first? Psychotherapy should be the primary outlet, but there’s less money to be made.
Xandra Roberts testified at the public health committee hearing that she detransitioned after living for 10 years as a man. Roberts says she feels lingering effects of testosterone, like facial hair growth.
“Too many kids are losing body parts and causing irreversible harm to their bodies and minds,” said Roberts, who was 26 when she began testosterone.
“Too many kids are losing body parts”? Sounds frightening, but how many kids are we really talking about? Actually, very very few. Even Xandra Roberts did not lose any body parts, apparently, and was not a kid when she began transitioning to a man. Proponents managed to find one person to testify in this regard, and that person did not even represent the situation this bill addresses. This is a culture war bill, not a solution to a real problem that exists in the real world. And as a culture war bill, the horrific climate of hate that it stirs up does much more actual harm to many actual Indiana children and young adults. It doesn’t take a whole lot of common sense to recognize that whatever the tiny number of kids who are “losing body parts,” we will lose a much higher number of kids to suicides that could have been prevented had Indiana not followed the immoral radical right down this hateful and harmful path.
Steve, the number of kids losing their body parts, or even futzing with their body chemistry through hormone manipulation, should be zero. If a human is under eighteen, their bodies and minds are not fully formed. (Many still aren’t even after eighteen.)
The only reason they’re finding “one person to testify” is that so many other detransitioners are silenced and receive death threats from the cult.
Let adults flip their sex back and forth like a light switch. A human body needs to complete physical and psychological maturation before they should make this decision.
What the opponents of this craze neglect to say is that their position is at odds with the policies other first world countries have towards kids with the the appearance of gender dysphoria. They recommend counseling rather than use of drugs or surgery, so the question is why to the crazies in America want to go in the opposite direction despite well-known long term and/or irreversible side effects?
Not only is this a mental health / counseling issue for the minor but for the parents. The amount parents who are projecting their “feelings” onto the child is even more crazy.
Well known, long term, and/or irreversible side effects is exactly the correct statement.
Can’t vote, buy alcohol, hold a job, but a very young child can take part of a science project with pharmaceuticals and even surgery?
Time to fix the parenting problems of the USA first.
But hey, we trust those same parents with a blank check in when it comes to educating children. Either trust parents or don’t. Can’t have it both ways.
If you’re really interested in fixing parenting problems, maybe starting with Indiana’s abysmal maternal mortality rates and the inability for most people to find day care would be a better place than the very small number of transgendered folks … then again, I’m not a Republican legislator trying to reasons/issues designed to keep voters donating money to me…
So, Joe, since you obviously don’t want charters or vouchers…is homeschooling your next target?
Why are you always so zealous to use government to solve problems? Public schools are basically toast. They are dead. All we see now is the death throes. So is higher ed. Are you enjoying siding with the party that has near monopolistic control of both, still thinking you’re “saving democracy” as your institutions collapse–and the bedrock of western liberalism along with it?
Few things more hilarious than for you to claim you used to be a Republican. You clearly are teeth-gnashingly resentful that we aren’t more like those sophisticates in Europe, whose persistent wars we finance. And who are collapsing right in tandem with us.
A very good common sense approach to making sure that the life altering decision of the parent’s minor and the medical “experts” are held in check until the minor reaches the legal age to make the final decision. Hormone therapy for ANYONE is a serious course of action much less a minor trying to find their place in the world. I’m sure there are good arguments from some medical practitioners as to why they think it is better to start the therapy earlier than age 18 but I’ll bet there are others in the medical establishment who would argue otherwise. Additionally, for those on the right who want to make this a moral/ religious issue, WRONG answer, read the constitution and the bill of rights. And, for those on the right who want to make this into a “rights” issue, recall that minors have limited rights until they are no longer minors in the eyes of the law.
Hang your head, Indiana. . This is a national disgrace.
LOL. The cultists are slobbering mad.
I really don’t understand why this is a state government issue. Why it is not a personal, family matter? Are we all supposed to be the same? This is frightening to me that lawmakers are making such a generalized decision over such a personal issue that is absolutely none of their business.