1. United States
2. Ind.
3. Letter

I urge you to vote NO on SB 441 in order to prevent significant harm towards the trans community in Indiana. First, this bill aims to define sex and gender as synonymous terms, which contrasts starkly with the views of many, many professionals across fields of sociology, psychology, medicine, and more. In the text of the bill, sex and gender would be “determined by sex genes, naturally occurring sex hormones, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth”, but each of these variables is known to have significant variation across individuals. To group every instance of variation across these variables would be a gross oversimplification. Keeping “sex” and “gender” as separate, discrete terms in Indiana’s legal terminology is the best course of action. Treating these terms as interchangeable erases people’s lived experiences and makes language surrounding the transgender experience harder to interpret. Secondly, the bill seeks to target transgender people in Indiana who have had their gender markers changed, supercede those documents, and issue new documents with gender markers that match their sex assigned at birth. This is a blatant attack on Indiana’s transgender community, specifically members of the community who have socially transitioned and are currently living comfortably and authentically. To change those documents, one must jump through myriad legal hoops to prove to officials across fields that living in a gender identity separate from their sex at birth is the healthiest option for them. This bill not only attacks transgender people, but will also waste taxpayer time and money to reissue the wide range of documents named in the proposal. Your role in protecting and honoring the people of Indiana, a population we both love dearly, undeniably includes transgender Hoosiers.