The Supreme Court has ruled that deliberate indifference to a serious medical need is a violation of the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. Yet Indiana legislators are moving a bill that would deny necessary medical care to incarcerated transgender Hoosiers.   

Every reputable medical organization has found that some transgender people need gender affirming care, which is often life-saving medical care. The courts have agreed, finding gender dysphoria to be a serious medical issue, requiring appropriate treatment.  

HB 1569 would categorically force the DOC to deny medically accepted, evidence-based treatments to incarcerated transgender people – placing their health at risk. It would deny this care based solely on the fact that they are transgender.  

This bill is, in short, wildly unconstitutional.  

The experts and the courts agree that appropriate medical care for transgender people is necessary and life-saving. If the legislature can deny a form of healthcare arbitrarily, they could just as easily deny other lifesaving treatments, such as cancer care.  

This bill is one of a record-breaking number of bills filed this session explicitly singling out LGBTQ people in Indiana for discriminatory treatment.  LGBTQ Hoosiers, like all people, deserve equal protection under the law and the ACLU of Indiana will use every tool available to fight each of these attacks.  

Let your legislator know you oppose anti-LGBTQ legislation.

The Indiana General Assembly has put forward a slate of hate — an onslaught of bills targeting LGBTQ Hoosiers and singling out trans kids. There is no other way to describe what we are seeing at the Statehouse. This is not one or two bad bills, this is a well-orchestrated, hate-driven campaign to push trans kids out of public life. 

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This is unprecedented:

• Several bills would ban nearly all forms of science-based care available to trans youth, with potentially dangerous physical and mental health consequences. 
• Indiana lawmakers are trying to force teachers to out students, and censor in-school discussions of LGBTQ people and issues.
• Despite the First Amendment’s right to free expression, Indiana lawmakers are fighting to restrict how and when LGBTQ people can be themselves by limiting access to books about them in public libraries.
• In another effort to out transgender Hoosiers, several bills attempt to limit the ability to update gender information on IDs.

The language that we are seeing in these bills is the same language included in legislation recently passed in Texas and Florida, including Florida’s infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill. 

Discriminating against LGBTQ Hoosiers is wrong, against the law, and costly. If lawmakers attempt to pass misguided laws, the ACLU of Indiana will fight those discriminatory laws at every turn, using every tool at our disposal to defend LGBTQ rights in Indiana.

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