Indiana lawmakers kicked off the new year and new legislative session by filing more than 600 bills, including one drafted by a House Republican which targets LGBTQ people in a massive, sweeping rewrite of a number of state statutes, with one clear goal: voiding any legal recognition of transgender people.
GOP state Rep. Chris Judy (photo), the vice chair of the House Family, Children and Human Affairs Committee, is the lead sponsor of HB 1291, a 69-page bill that removes the word “gender” from many state laws and inserts “biological sex” in its place, redefines gender by providing specific, biological-based definitions for words like man, woman, boy, girl, father, and mother, and takes other action against LGBTQ people.
“That would mean the state would recognize a person’s gender based on their sex organs rather than how they choose to identify,” the Indianapolis Star reports.
The bill also reaffirms Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling made all state bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. 35 states still have some form of ban on same-sex marriage on their books. If the Supreme Court were to overturn its ruling, same-sex marriage bans, including Indiana’s could go back into effect.
According to WNDU, HB 1291 “seeks to change the state’s stance on gay marriage by stating that marriage is ‘between one man and one woman.’ Per the bill, any other marriage ‘is void in Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is solemnized.’”
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“Indiana has filed a bill to end ALL recognition of transgender people,” says LGBTQ journalist and activist Erin Reed. “It is one of several states to do so, perfectly mirroring Russia’s 2020 law and Hungary’s 2023. I will also note, it updates the definition for gay marriage as well, in preparation for overturning Obergefell.”
The bill affects many aspects of daily life.
“Indiana House Bill 1291 would re-define a person’s gender in several laws that describe a person being physically male or female, to match their sex assigned at birth,” ABC57 reports. “If passed, this would affect how police identify a missing person, laws surrounding sex discrimination, and even how people are put in jail.”
The legislation ignores many factors and facets of the human condition, including deeming transgender women and women who have had hysterectomies not female.
“‘Female’ means a person with a reproductive system that, but for a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, at some point produces ova,” is how the bill reads.
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Similarly, the bill deems transgender men and some men with non-genetic differences not male.
“‘Male’ means a person with a reproductive system that, but for a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development, at some point produces sperm for fertilization of ova.”
The bill changes the word “gender” to “biological sex” throughout Indiana state law. It affects statutes including voting, college student housing, drivers’ licenses, marriage, standards for instruction and instructors, treatment of governmental applicants and employees, and how law enforcement treats missing persons.
The word “gender” appears 63 times in the bill, and in most of those cases it strikes out the word “gender” and replaces it with the term “biological sex.”