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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana University School of Medicine has canceled its annual LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference, posting the change in a brief note on the event’s webpage.
“Due to emerging circumstances, we are unable to move forward with the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference as planned in April 2025,” the statement said Friday morning. The statement was changed later in the day to simply say the event had been canceled.
The virtual conference included “health care professionals, learners, researchers, patients, community organizations and interested community members who seek to understand the unique health considerations and barriers to health care in the LGBTQ+ population,” according to the event page.
The conference began in 2017 as a single-day event but was expanded to two days.
When asked about the cancelation, the school responded with another brief statement: “The IU School of Medicine LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference has been canceled,” spokesperson Katie Duffey wrote in an email.
IU’s decision comes as governments, nonprofit organizations, universities and even private companies are grappling with how to handle issues related to diversity—including LGBTQ issues—in light of President Donald Trump’s hostility toward diversity, equity and inclusion programs. This week, he ordered a freeze on the release of all federal government loans and grants while the administration reviewed whether the spending complied with executive orders the president has issued since taking office. Those orders including efforts to remove protections for transgender people and end DEI efforts.
Trump later rescinded that order. But several organizations have told IBJ that they are nervous about what could happen to their funding under the new administration.
The university did not provide a reason why the conference was canceled. And IU officials did not make any connection between the conference and Trump’s actions.
Chris Geidner, an attorney who writes the Law Dork blog, posted this week that on Monday he had been invited to be a keynote speaker at the event only to be told Wednesday that the event was canceled. He wrote that the conference had been planned for April 23-24.
In his blog post, Geidner said he was also told the school was canceling the event “due to multiple emerging factors and circumstances beyond the control of the Indiana University School of Medicine.”
“Of course, we all know what happened,” Geidner said. “Donald Trump is president, and he is empowering his people to disempower anyone not like him.”
Indiana lawmakers have similarly banned gender-affirming care for minors. In November, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Indiana’s ban on such care would stay in place, reversing a district court’s order that would have prevented the state’s law from going into effect.
In years past, the IU School of Medicine touted the conference and its leadership in LGBTQ+ issues.
In 2021, an IU School of Medicine post noted that the LGBTQ+ Health Care Conference drew 1,000 registrants including physicians, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, psychologists, therapists and other health care professionals.
In 2019, IU School of Medicine Dean Jay Hess wrote a blog, under the headline “Pride in our LGBTQ health care leadership,” where he noted that more than 160 physicians, nurses, physician assistants and other health professionals attended the conference.
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As soon as you get to the capital T, the lying begins. No one has ever changed gender in the history of the human race.
I assume you are referring to Trump.
I think you mean sex?
One CANNOT change its DNA. But, perhaps there’s hope for those who can alter their DNA…………………of course by way of AI !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha, ha, ha. Be careful though, one might become a dog!!!!!!!!!!!
Gosh you’re clever.
I know.. I’ll clarify. One cannot change his/her gender by altering his or her DNA. So, if a guy wants to become a woman and cut off his genitalia, the dude is still a male. Is that too clever for ya Dave????
Huh? Idiot.
Best to ignore trolls especially those who stutter in all caps.
I’m assuming it will come out that this cancelation was strongly “suggested” by Indiana’s legislators and/or attorney general.
The woke joke is crashing like a house of cards. Amen
It’s a doctors job to be able to treat all their patients.
I have yet to find a PCP over 55 who actually knows what they’re doing at this point. They haven’t learned anything since the 90s
The ignorance displayed here is huge, Back in the 1980’s I was a new programmer at a hospital and I was shocked to find out options in the computer system for “sex” was not just M/F. There was a third option, “H” for hermaphrodite. As a senior nurse explained to me that because of the genetic dice roll, sometimes external genitalia on new borns was not so clear and these fell into the category of “H”. We now have genetic testing to definitively tell the sex genes, and even then there are variations.
So, if external sex organs can be indeterminate, it makes perfect sense that traits that cannot be seen vary from individual to individual.
No matter how much anybody wants to deny it, it is proven science that there are variations in sexual characteristics, and to deny it is just willful ignorance.
Kudos to Dan M.!