Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus
Sen. Greg Walker, R-Columbus, has supported another bill aimed at the rights of transgender youth as Indiana Republicans continue to advance a wave of legislation curbing LGBTQ+ rights this session.
Walker on Monday voted in favor of HB 1608, which would require schools to notify parents if their children ask school officials to change their names or pronouns. The proposal cleared the Senate in 37-12 vote.
The bill previously cleared the House in a 65-29 vote in February, with support from Rep. Ryan Lauer, R-Columbus, and Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, state records show.
Currently, the measure is pending before the House, which will decide whether to concur with changes that the Senate made. If the House signs off on the changes, the bill will be sent to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, who recently signed a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
Under the Indiana bill, a school would have to provide written notification to a child’s parent or guardian within five business days of the child asking to be called a different “pronoun, title, or word.”
Supporters say this approach would empower parents to choose how their children are raised.
Detractors characterized the bill as an attack on the state’s LGBTQ+ students, especially trans youth, who they said could be outed to their families, who may not be supportive.
Fewer than 1 in 3 transgender and nonbinary youth in the U.S. reported their homes to be gender-affirming, according to the Trevor Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth suicide prevention.
In addition, LGBTQ+ youth who find their school to be LGBTQ-affirming report lower rates of attempting suicide, the Trevor Project states.
The bill also bans schools, school staff and third-party vendors from providing any instruction on “human sexuality” to students in third grade or below, The Indiana Capital Chronicle reported. But sex education typically doesn’t begin until the fourth or sixth grades under existing state standards.
Walker did not respond to a request for comment on why he supports the measure.
The vote comes as many Republican-led legislatures around the country have been seeking to curb LGBTQ+ rights, especially in targeting transgender individuals’ everyday life — including sports, health care, workplaces and schools, according to wire reports.
Walker also was a co-author of SB 480, the state’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for minors. The senator representing Columbus voted in favor of the ban in February.
The ban bars transgender youth under 18 from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to treat gender dysphoria, treatments that doctors and major medical groups say are evidence-based, medically necessary and sometimes even lifesaving.
Walker said earlier this year that he signed onto the bill as a co-author “in order to have that conversation about some of the long-term effects of administering estrogen and testosterone or other agents that there’s not a physical, medical need (or) indication for these particular hormones.”
“There does seem to be a rising tide of requests for this kind of treatment, and I want to understand better are there long-term effects of estrogen and testosterone on development if, with time, the gender preference changes back to that from the biological beginning, and does that cause long-term harm?” Walker said in January.
Columbus Regional Health has expressed concern that the ban could lead to an increase in mental health challenges and have other negative impacts for local transgender youth who will be denied care they need.
Local health officials have emphasized that these treatments are not experimental or dangerous in any way to the people who are receiving them. They also said it is “exceptionally rare” for minors anywhere in the U.S. to undergo gender-affirming genital surgery, adding that it would require parents and multiple medical and mental health professionals to be on board.
