Indiana Bill Would Hijack Conversion Therapy Laws To Ban Transition

Republicans are playing political games with trans people and the LGBTQ+ community. This time, they have filed a new bill to ban "physical conversion therapy," which includes gender transition.

Photo by Ryan De Hamer on Unsplash

Indiana has been the site of several anti-trans bills in recent years. In 2022, they enacted a ban on transgender athletes from playing sports that match their gender identity by overcoming the governors veto. They attempted to pass a bill that would criminally ban gender transition for trans youth. Yesterday, they proposed one of their most inhumane bills yet. Indiana HB1118 would ban gender transition for trans youth by placing it in a new law banning physical conversion therapy. It defines gender transition, ridiculously, as a form of conversion therapy and says that anybody who obtains gender transition for trans youth should be investigated for child abuse. The bill then defines violations as a level 5 felony.

The new Indiana bill states that “a health care professional may not purposefully attempt to change, reinforce, or affirm a minors perception of the minor’s own sexual attraction or sexual behavior, or attempt to change, reinforce, or affirm a minor’s gender identity when that identity is inconsistent with the minors biological sex, by engaging in any of the following activities.” The bill then goes on to list several activities that are brutal and that anyone would agree should be banned: subjecting genitals to electric currents, wrapping the minors hands in heat coils, subjecting a minor to an ice bath. Alongside these forms of conversion therapy torture, it lists puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Sec. 4 of Indiana HB1118

This bill clearly has drawn from TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminist) ideology in its development - TERF orgs have claimed that gender transition is done to “trans away the gay”. Prominent TERF thought leader Helen Joyce claims, for instance, that the “affirmative care model IS conversion therapy.” This line of thought has also made its way into US court fights. James Cantor, an anti-trans "neuroscientist and sex researcher” who has appeared in several court fights as a witness in favor of anti-trans legislation, said in 2021 that “transition IS conversion therapy.” Now, this bill seeks to establish this thinking into law by banning all gender affirming care for trans youth.

Anyone who is transgender can tell you that the idea that anti-gay people would somehow be more OK with transition than having a gay child is ridiculous on its face. From personal experience, much of the time the most anti-trans people in life are also anti-gay. So many trans people can attest that upon transitioning, they are asked by parents and friends, “why couldn’t you just be gay?” Nobody is giving a minor gender affirming care in order to change their sexuality. Sexual attraction and gender are entirely separate things, and many transgender people identify as gay or bisexual post-transition. If transition is a form of conversion therapy, it is a laughably ineffective one.

The Republicans pushing this bill have no intent to ban real conversion therapy. That is why religious conversion therapy through coercive means is not banned in this bill. Likewise, the bill makes no attempt to ban gender exploratory therapy, a psychological conversion therapy model that seeks to convince a trans person to no longer be trans by convincing them that their transition is best explained by other social factors and poor mental health. The clear play that Republicans are making is in claiming that Democrats who vote against this bill are voting against physical conversion therapy bans. Republicans clearly think that they can shield themselves from claims that they are in favor of conversion therapy with a bill like this. We must not allow them to hide behind attacking trans people and playing political games with LGBTQ+ kids.

The whole bill is made worse by the addition of child abuse enforcement mechanisms. This bill is one of a few that would trigger child abuse investigations for gender affirming care. Texas, at the direction of Attorney General Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott, famously begun investigating the parents of all trans kids who obtain gender affirming care for child abuse. This caused trans teens to attempt suicide and families to leave the state. States such as Michigan, Missouri, and Texas have seen bills that attempt to codify gender affirming care as child abuse into state law. The weaponization of child protective services against the parents of transgender youth is chilling and fulfills Item e of Article II on the UN definition of genocide by forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The end goal is an elimination of transgender youth.

We must stand strongly against legislation like this. I will be covering this bill as it moves its way through the Indiana legislature on my twitter and this newsletter. It is integral that people show up to testify and speak about why bills like this harm transgender youth, who are at increased risk of suicide that is best alleviated by gender affirming care. Gender affirming care is not conversion therapy, and by banning gender affirming care if this bill is passed, Indiana would make conversion therapy the mainstay treatment in the state.