Indiana Republicans want to re-write the law to eliminate the word “gender”

This blog originally appeared at LGBTQ Nation.

A new bill put forward by Indiana Republican lawmakers aims to legally erase transgender individuals and reassert the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage.

The bill also says, “Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female.”

H.B. 1291 proposes the removal of the term “gender” from state laws, substituting it with “biological sex,” even within anti-discrimination statutes. The bill seeks to redefine “male” and “female” based on an individual’s ability to produce sperm or ova, along with redefining other gender-related terms based on physical characteristics.

The proposed bill, H.B. 1291, would effectively eliminate trans identity from legal considerations, prohibiting transgender individuals from updating gender markers on official documents to align with their lived experiences.

It says that intersex people are male or female “but for a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development,” which is related to a common conservative idea that all intersex people can be easily categorized as male or female.

“Only a female may marry a male. Only a male may marry a female,” the bill reads in a section that lists state laws and how they need to be changed to implement the new, anti-trans definitions. “A marriage between persons of the same biological sex is void in Indiana even if the marriage is lawful in the place where it is solemnized.”

Although the provision related to same-sex marriage in H.B. 1291 wouldn’t be applicable under the current legal framework due to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell decision in 2015, it underscores a persistent stance within some Republican circles against marriage equality. This position continues to be part of the national Republican Party platform, indicating an ongoing desire among some Republicans to overturn or limit same-sex marriage rights in the United States.

“Indiana has filed a bill to end ALL recognition of transgender people,” journalist Erin Reed posted on X. “It is one of several states to do so, perfectly mirroring Russia’s 2020 law and Hungary’s 2023.”

In April of the previous year, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed a bill into law that prohibited transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming care. However, this legislation faced a temporary block from a federal judge two months later.

Indiana instituted a ban on same-sex marriage in 1986 and further prohibited the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states in 1997. Despite several attempts to pass a constitutional amendment explicitly prohibiting marriage equality in the state, none of these efforts proved successful.