Mandating Discrimination Against Transgender and Intersex People (SB 182)

While this bill failed, similar language may be reintroduced in a future session.

SB 182 targeted transgender Hoosiers across multiple areas of Indiana law. It would have imposed rigid statewide definitions of “male,” “female,” “sex,” and “gender” based on reproductive anatomy rather than gender identity, then used those definitions to restrict access to accurate birth certificates, school and college facilities, housing arrangements, and correctional placements.

The bill also would have sharply limited changes to the sex designation on a birth certificate, making it much harder for transgender Hoosiers to obtain identity documents that reflect who they are. An amendment made the bill even more sweeping by adding bathroom, locker room, shower, and sleeping-quarter restrictions for K-12 schools, charter schools, and public colleges, while creating a private right of action against schools and colleges accused of violating those rules.

It also required incarcerated people, including delinquent youth offenders, to be assigned based on their sex at birth, despite the well-documented risks transgender people face in confinement.

Measures like this do not make anyone safer. They invite discrimination, harassment, and scrutiny of anyone who does not conform to narrow ideas about sex and gender. We opposed SB 182 because it was a harmful and unnecessary attack on transgender Hoosiers.