WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (LifeSiteNews) — A city council in one Indiana town has unanimously approved a resolution vowing to recognize and protect transgender so-called “care,” raising questions about how local officials will cooperate with state law banning such practices.
Resolution 13-2025 declares that the “welcoming and accepting” community supports “gender affirming health care,” considers it “subject to all privacy rules and regulations as set forth in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 to the extent this position is consistent with applicable State or Federal law”; and forbids city employees or contractors from involvement in “any unlawful action against an individual or organization on grounds that they are known or believed to have (i) provided, sought, received, or assisted another individual with [so-called] gender affirming health care (ii) sought, obtained, provided or facilitated [so-called] gender affirming health care outside of the City of West Lafayette or the State of Indiana, except as otherwise required by law.”
Indiana law bans puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or “gender transition” surgeries for anyone in the state below age 18. That law was enacted in 2023, and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last November it can be enforced.
The West Lafayette resolution ostensibly calls for deferring to state authorities when required by law. But one of the backers told the Purdue Exponent how it could inform cooperation with state law enforcement: “The city of West Lafayette has just affirmed … any unnecessary legal action against providers or receivers of [so-called] gender affirming care is going to be a low priority,” said AJ Dunn of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
Other officials and activists framed the resolution as primarily symbolic. “This resolution feels like the bare minimum we can do, and I want to be able to do so much more,” city council member Kathy Parker said. “I want to be able to make sure that these folks are protected – that they feel safe and welcome.”
However, a large body of evidence shows that “affirming” gender confusion carries serious harms, especially when done with impressionable children who lack the mental development, emotional maturity, and life experience to consider the long-term ramifications of the decisions being pushed on them, or full knowledge about the long-term effects of life-altering, physically-transformative, and often-irreversible surgical and chemical procedures.
Studies find that more than 80 percent of children suffering gender dysphoria outgrow it on their own by late adolescence and that “reassignment” procedures fail to resolve gender-confused individuals’ heightened tendency to engage in self-harm and suicide — and even exacerbate it, including by reinforcing their confusion and neglecting the actual root causes of their mental strife.
Many oft-ignored detransitioners attest to the physical and mental harm of reinforcing gender confusion, as well as to the bias and negligence of the medical establishment on the subject, many of whom take an activist approach to their profession and begin cases with a predetermined conclusion in favor of “transitioning.”
