Braun backs gender transition bill, criticizes lack of national budget
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Sen. Mike Braun on Thursday said he saw no disconnect between Republicans’ broader embrace of parents’ rights and Indiana’s new ban gender transition procedures for minors.
In a wide-ranging interview with News 8, the Indiana Republican praised Gov. Eric Holcomb’s decision to sign the ban, which prohibits hormone therapy, puberty blockers and surgery for gender transition purposes for anyone under 18. It already faces a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of four transgender minors and their parents.
Republicans in Indiana and nationwide have embraced bans on teaching LGBTQ+ topics or critical race theory in schools and efforts to remove books on such topics under the guise of parents’ rights. When asked whether the gender transition treatment ban goes against that philosophy, Braun replied, “When there isn’t a complicating factor in terms of what that particular choice would do, especially when it would be in that category of, if you do take the wrong pathway, you cannot reverse it, I think it’s got different characteristics to it.”
Braun said House Republicans have not given him any details about what might be in their plan for the budget. He said he’s frustrated by the opaque budget-writing process in Congress, contrasting it with the marathon public budget hearings that typically mark the process in the Indiana General Assembly.
“The people running the show (in Congress) don’t want to do budgets,” he said. “When I was on Ways and Means here in our own Statehouse, we brought in all the stakeholders, all the agency heads. Justify why you need more. None of that is done. It’s all cooked up by a few of the leaders.”
A new study has found deaths at the scene from firearm injuries have risen over the past 20 years and attributed this trend to growing use of rifles such as the military-style rifles favored by mass shooters. The study came weeks after the latest mass shooting in the United States, this time at a private Christian school in Nashville. Braun noted Tennessee’s lack of a red flag law and said a law like Indiana’s would have prevented the shooter from accessing the firearms they used to carry out the attack. When News 8 asked if a federal red flag law is needed, Braun replied the issue is best left up to the states.
Braun was among more than a dozen Republicans who voted with Democrats to repeal the 1991 and 2003 authorizations for use of military force against Iraq, a resolution co-sponsored by Sen. Todd Young, R-Indiana. Braun said Congress needs to exercise much stricter oversight for future military operations. He said he would be open to putting sunset provisions in future AUMFs.