Amid flurry of transgender restricting bills, proposal on school sports likely to advance

Indiana lawmakers are pushing for a bill that would restrict transgender girls from participating in  sports.

Already there are signs that the bill will advance through the legislative process. House Bill 1041, which would prohibit students assigned male at birth from participating in a girls' sport, is slated to be heard in committee on Monday, House Education Committee chair Bob Behning, R-Indianapolis, confirmed on Wednesday.

At least half a dozen bills were filed at the start of the 2022 legislative session that could impact transgender Hoosiers, including bills that would ban gender affirming medical care for minors, limit which bathrooms transgender Hoosiers could use, require the state to collect data on gender affirming surgeries and prohibit gender from being changed on a birth certificate. 

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It's not unusual for such bills to be filed in Indiana, but most transgender or LGBTQ+ related bills have failed to advance in the years after Indiana received negative national attention for its Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 2015.

That appears to not be the case this year, amid a flurry of bills targeting social issues, from legislation limiting what teachers can say about race in the classroom to a bill nixing the handgun permit requirement. 

Impact of sports bill 

Indiana is following in the steps of dozens of other states that filed legislation in 2021 to ban transgender girls from playing girls sports, amid national fights over transgender equality issues. Even U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Indiana, weighed in on an editorial last year, warning that allowing transgender girls to play on girls teams would be "robbing young women of athletic scholarships."

A similar Texas bill just went into effect this week. 

Kit Malone, an advocacy strategist for the ACLU of Indiana, said the fears of proponents are overblown. House Bill 1041 isn't targeting elite athletes; it's targeting kids who just want to play on a team with their friends, she said.

"(House Bill) 1041 would make it illegal for trans children to play on teams with their friends," said Malone. "Occasionally, when one trans woman succeeds, she is used as evidence that cisgender women are going to be taken out of those sports, that they're gonna be out-competed by a horde of trans women. We just have not seen that happening."

On Wednesday, Behning told IndyStar that a majority of House Republicans support the bill. Behning said he thinks it makes sense and deserves discussion.

“It's just, how do we make sure that… we're playing fairly in terms of athletics,” Behning said.

Likewise Micah Clark, executive director of the socially conservative American Family Association of Indiana, argued that girls could lose a scholarship to "someone who's a biological male."

Bill author Rep. Michelle Davis, R-Whiteland, did not respond to requests for comment.

The family of a transgender seventh-grader filed a lawsuit against Martinsville Schools last year over a similar issue. According to court documents, the family alleges that John R. Wooden Middle School unfairly denied him access to the boys' bathroom, blocked him from participating in boys' sports and refused to call him by male pronouns.

Senate Bill 402

A second bill that could impact transgender youth is also poised to advance in the Statehouse, Senate Bill 402. That bill, authored by Salem Republican Sen. Erin Houchin would clarify that it's not considered child abuse or neglect to use pronouns that are not consistent with a child's gender identity. The Senate family and Children Services committee will consider that bill Thursday. 

Houchin, who has announced a Congressional bid in the 9th District, said in a statement that the Senate received calls from parents that the Department of Child Services was investigating due to anonymous or outside tips that the child's parents weren't using the correct pronouns. 

"The legislation simply clarifies that this alone does not rise to the level of abuse or neglect and is intended to prevent the government from intruding on very private and personal matters among parents and children," Houchin said. "The provision does not prevent the Department of Child Services from intervening on behalf of children in cases where allegations are made in regard to their safety."

That bill is problematic, Malone said. Ultimately what is considered abuse should be left up to the experts, she said. 

"The way that families deal with these situations can be nuanced, and changing and I don't think anyone wants children taken away from a loving home because a family is you know, going through growth about a child's gender identity," Malone said. "But what we don't want is to shackle social workers and shackle child welfare providers by telling them that it can't ever be considered child abuse because of course, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't."

Clark, though, agreed with the language and said it needs to be more challenging to remove a child from a home. 

"I think abuse needs to be a much higher threshold than that," he said. 

Other legislation

LGBTQ+ Advocates don't think that the other Indiana bills targeting transgender rights will advance this legislative session. But, they say even seeing these bills filed is harmful for those who are transgender. 

"Even introducing these bills, even bringing these bills up, and and then contributing to that sense that trans people have, that their own communities are attacking them and trying to ostracize them, that has a very negative and frightening effect on youth," Malone said, "and we see it every year."

According to a Trevor Project poll conducted this fall, 85% of transgender youth said that recent debates about state laws restricting the rights of transgender people has negatively impacted their mental health.

House Bill 1348, a bill from Jasonville Republican Rep. Bruce Borders would prohibit transgender Hoosiers from using the bathroom that corelates with their gender identity. That same issue led to fierce economic backlist in 2016 in North Carolina.

The issue of transgender students and their treatment, or mistreatment, by schools also is not new for the courts. In 2019, a federal judge ruled that a school in Evansville violated civil rights protections by not allowing a transgender boy to use the men’s restrooms at school.

Another bill from Davis, House Bill 1121, would require the state to collect data on the frequency of gender affirming surgery or prescriptions for minors.

House Bill 1399, also from Borders, would ban gender changes on birth certificates, and Senate Bill 34, a bill from Auburn Republican Sen. Dennis Kruse would have prohibited any gender affirming surgeries or hormones for minors, regardless of parental approval.

Kruse declined to comment because he said his bill would not be advancing. Borders did not respond to requests for comment.

Alisha Hunter, the mom of a 15-year-old transgender boy said if a bill like SB 34 was passed that would ban the kind of care her son is receiving, their family would seriously consider moving out of the state. Her son receives therapy and gender-affirming health care at Riley at IU Health.

“They’re experts in the field,” said Hunter. “And the fact that there are some legislators out there that think they somehow know better than these physicians, quite honestly, is pretty disgusting.”

Hunter, who is also a co-founder of the forthcoming Central Indiana chapter of GLSEN, an organization that works to ensure that LGBTQ students are able to learn and grow in a school environment free from bullying and harassment, likewise emphasized the harm it would cause to make gender on a birth certificate a permanent record that cannot be changed. 

Two years ago, Hunter changed her son’s legal name and gender on his birth certificate. It’s been one less thing for him to worry about at school, she said, now that official school records and documents don’t identify him by the wrong name or gender. Substitutes aren’t given a roster with incorrect information any more, a situation that led to uncomfortable errors.

“If you ask me, they’re hate bills,” she said. “That's exactly what they are. It shows the bigotry and hatred towards the transgender community.”

Deadlines to advance legislation out of committee for both chambers are next week. Anything that doesn't is considered dead. 

Call IndyStar reporter Kaitlin Lange at 317-432-9270 or email her at kaitlin.lange@indystar.com. Follow her on Twitter: @kaitlin_lange.