The Indiana State Senate this week approved a law defining sex as strictly binary, male or female, based on biological criteria.
The measure passed along party lines, with 37 Republican senators voting in favor and all Democratic senators opposing it. Democrats argued that gender is not limited to two categories and includes transgender individuals and people with non-binary identities.
Once enacted, the law will require birth certificates to list sex as either male or female only. It will also bar individuals who identify as women from being housed in women’s prisons if they were born male, and prohibit boys who identify as girls or as transgender from using girls’ restrooms and changing facilities in schools.
LGBT advocacy groups and allied organizations in Indiana strongly criticized the legislation, calling it discriminatory, harmful, and unnecessary. Some activists described it as “the most extreme anti-LGBT law of the past decade."
Supporters of broader gender definitions argue that, beyond the biological categories of male and female, there are numerous gender identities. These include identities involving transitions between genders, as well as identities in which individuals experience or embrace multiple genders over time.