ACLU Calls Bills Anit-LGBTQ

The Indiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said that two bills advancing in the Indiana Legislature are threatening the rights of the LGBTQ community.

“Today, Indiana legislators advanced two additional anti-LGBTQ bills that aim to erase LGBTQ youth and families from our communities, putting the lives of trans youth, specifically, at risk,” said Katie Blair, Advocacy and Public Policy Director for the organization. “These legislators have made it clear, they want to use our laws to control what LGBTQ youth can and cannot read, what they can and cannot learn, and—most troublingly— who they can and cannot be. These bills threaten the fundamental rights of LGBTQ youth and their families, and the ACLU of Indiana will continue using every tool at our disposal to stop this onslaught of hateful legislation.”

According to the ACLU, The Indiana Senate passed SB 480 which would ban evidence-based, gender-affirming care for transgender people under 18, and SB 12, which could criminalize public schools and librarians for having material deemed “harmful to minors” — a vague term historically used to target LGBTQ related content.

This comes less than a week after the House passed two other bills the organization said are harmful to the LGBTQ community. HB 1608 is a bill that would censor conversations about the LGBTQ community in school, and force teachers to out students, and HB 1407, a bill prohibiting child services agencies from even considering failure to provide a safe and affirming environment to trans youth when deciding whether to remove a child from an abusive home.