Indiana #SlateOfHate echoes other anti-trans legislation across the country

Indiana is trying to stop parents of trans kids from providing life-saving, evidence-based care for their trans kids

As I sat and watched the hearings in the Indiana State Senate about SB 480 this morning, my heart was breaking for all the trans kids and their parents in Indiana who will be forcibly medically detransitioned as a result of this bill. The short version is that MAGA members of the Indiana legislature have sponsored a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, which opponents very correctly call the #SlateOfHate. The bill the Senate discussed today would prohibit physicians or other practitioners from knowingly providing gender transition procedures to an individual who is less than 18 years of age that are intended to alter the gender of the minor or delay puberty. Others concern trans-girls playing sports, or direct Child Protective Services that they cannot call parents who deny their kids gender affirming care, or even mental healthcare, abusive.

Every major medical organization in this country advocates gender affirming care as evidence-based best practice in treating gender dysphoria, which is when an individual feels that their gender does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. Every single credible medical organization believes that providing gender affirming care is a good idea for people experiencing this mismatch. Yet, Indiana’s MAGA-captured legislature continues to insert itself between individuals and their doctors, seeking to deny trans youth medical care based on lies and disinformation. In most places, gender affirming care for minors consists of social transitioning and puberty blockers, which are reversible—not the surgery that anti-trans legislators point to as their motivation for denying parents the ability to secure care for their kids.

As I watched the hearings today, I followed Erin Reed, a transgender woman activist, on Twitter. You can follow her on substack, or on Twitter:

Erin Reed @ErinInTheMorn

Happening now, Indiana is hearing its first anti-trans bill that would force medial detransition on trans youth. SB480 is being presented right now. Follow along with me in a thread. 🧵

Because there’s so much malicious and hate-filled disinformation involved, let’s look at the truth about transgender youth and gender affirming care.

1. Trans and genderqueer kids attempt suicide every 45 seconds in this country. Up to 30% of trans youth will try to die by suicide. Studies have shown that gender affirming care, and even one adult who cares for these kids can save their lives.¹

2. Sex and gender are far, far more complicated than middle school genetics would have us believe. Many, many peoples’ internal organs and external genitalia do not match, and different chromosomes are involved in gender and sex. The idea that there are two sexes, and that these are the same as gender, and that we can tell by looking at someone’s genitals is outdated science.²

3. Before kids transition, the vast majority are insistent, persistent, and consistent that their gender and genitals don’t match. Teams of healthcare professionals spend a great deal of time with parents and kids before beginning treatment.³

4. As Senator Shelli Yoder (D) noted, 94 percent of trans youth receiving gender affirming care have been helped tremendously and see this care as lifesaving. Of the remaining six percent, four percent identify as nonbinary (rather than trans). Only two percent of trans youth who transition reverse that transition.⁴

5. Transgender people have existed for as long as people have existed…in every society, in every age. ⁵

6. Only about 25 percent of trans people are interested in surgery, and it is not performed on youth under 18 in Indiana (or most places).⁶

7. Anti-trans legislation limits parental rights to treat their kids with evidence-based care, it does not enhance parental rights.

8. People testifying against trans youth and in favor of the bill limiting the right to gender affirming care go from state to state to testify. Those who are opposed call upon false statistics that have no basis in fact.

It’s no coincidence that MAGA legislators are sponsoring anti-trans and anti LGBTQ+ bills across the United States in MAGA states as you see in the map at the top of this post. This is part of a concerted campaign to marginalize trans and other LGBTQ+ people, divide different groups of people against each other, and promote the idea that if one group gains full freedom and rights, another group loses them. As MAGA Republicans pit one group against another, divide us against each other, they hope we won’t notice that their leaders and megadonors continue to accrue power and vast wealth at our expense.

Freedom is not pie, in which there’s a limited quantity available. All of us, whatever our race, gender, religion, or zip code, deserve to have access to evidence based-healthcare without government joining us in the exam room. This applies to reproductive freedom as well. We all deserve to be seen as we are, to live full and fulfilling lives, to identify how we choose, love who we love, and live free from fear and discrimination.

1. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/resources/article/facts-about-lgbtq-youth-suicide/

2. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sex-redefined-the-idea-of-2-sexes-is-overly-simplistic1/

3. https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/yale-team-gender-issues

4. https://www.openaccessgovernment.org/study-finds-2-5-of-transgender-kids-go-through-detransition/135029/

5. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/how-historians-are-documenting-lives-of-transgender-people

6. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21526-gender-affirmation-confirmation-or-sex-reassignment-surgery