The Indiana governor has signed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the right-leaning state, in another blow against transgender youth.
Republican governor Eric Holcomb signed the new law after it was approved by right-wing majorities in both wings of the state legislature. It will ban any medical care meant to ‘alter’ the apparent biological sex of a minor. This includes surgical care, which is all but impossible for minors to access anyway, but it also bans puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
According to medical providers, those kinds of therapy are often life-saving to transgender kids, are endorsed by medical associations, and are reversible.
This puts Indiana in line with eleven other states that have established new laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care for youths. A dozen more states are considering similar laws.
On Tuesday, Holcomb had told reporters that the bill as it came to him was ‘vague,’ and had not indicated if he would sign it or veto it, but by Wednesday, he had toed the Republican party line.
The rash of these bills has happened against the advice of virtually every doctor. It’s widely accepted that the best treatment for transgender youth is gender-affirming care. This includes supportive therapy, puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and being allowed to use the names, pronouns, and clothing that suits them best.
Lawmakers continue to pound the drum that they are doing this for the benefit of the children, but it’s a lie. Like bathroom bills and laws to prevent trans athletes from competing as themselves, it’s just another blatant attempt to make trans people invisible or extinct.
Other lies include that trans children are being given whatever surgery or hormones they want at incredibly young ages. Medical professionals don’t begin offering any medical treatment until the onset of puberty, and then only puberty blockers. The same puberty blockers used safely on cisgender children who have puberty too early, but that provokes no outcry.
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