HB 1361 was introduced in the Indiana legislature on Thursday. Its intent was to block transgender Indianans from updating their birth certificates.
The intent of this bill is to strip transgender people of the most basic and fundamental dignity.
HB 1361 seeks to deny the very existence of transgender people—with the cruel mandate that a transgender person’s birth certificate can never match the identity they live as and the person they have always known themselves to be.
--Freedom Indiana
But the bill encountered what appears on the surface to be a sane republican.
Rep. Cindy Kirchhofer, the Republican chair of the Indiana’s Public Health Committee, confirmed in a statement that she is declining to hear the bill in committee, effectively halting its progress for 2017. She said she will instead focus on the pressing public health issue of opioid and heroin addiction.
We’re so thankful to Rep. Kirchhofer and members of the General Assembly who saw this dangerous bill for what it is: A harmful, discriminatory distraction from the real issues facing Hoosier families.
Discrimination will never win in Indiana. Together, we’ll continue to make sure of it.
--Chris Paulsen, Freedom Indiana
The bill’s author, Republican and Elvis impersonator Rep. Bruce Borders, said the proposal wasn’t meant as a political statement.
This was not a philosophically driven thing. I just respect accuracy in all legal records.
--Borders
Indiana currently requires transgender people to obtain a court order if they want to change their sex on their birth certificate and other legal documents.