Indiana advances bill that would 'mandate discrimination' against trans people, ACLU warnshttps://www.advocate.com/politics/indiana-transgender-bathroom-birth-certificate 🔗Ryan Adamczeski (3 Feb 2026)
A new bill advancing in Indiana contains multiple policies targeting transgender people, including preventing them from updating their documents or using facilities based on gender identity.
The Indiana state Senate passed in a 37 to 8 vote last week S.B. 182, which would create legal definitions of "male" and "female" based on sex assigned at birth, or as the bill states, "anatomy, hormones, and the gametes oriented toward fertilization without regard to the individual's psychological, behavioral, social, chosen, or subjective experience of gender." It now heads to the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives.
The law would prevent trans people from changing the sex listed on their birth certificates unless they have "a medically verifiable disorder of sex development." It would also mandate that students at public schools, charter schools, and public colleges use single-sex facilities such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorms based on this definition.
Individuals would be permitted to sue other individuals, schools, or companies found to be in violation of the law. Though the damages are unspecified, they could include injunctive relief, declaratory judgement, as well as costs and reasonable attorney's fees.
The ACLU of Indiana said in a statement that the bill, if passed, would essentially be "mandating discrimination against transgender and intersex people."
