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The American Civil Liberties Union has requested the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals grant a review of its earlier decision to reverse a preliminary injunction against the state law banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth.
In November, the 7th Circuit voted 2-1 to vacate the district court’s temporary injunction on Senate Enrolled Act 480, which bans medical practitioners from providing gender transition procedures to minors.
“Since this ban took effect, it has had devastating consequences for trans youth in Indiana, their families, and their medical providers,” the ACLU and ACLU of Indiana said in a joint statement on the Indiana chapter’s website. “Our clients have been forced to seek care out of state, and the in-state providers they see for regular checkups and other medical conditions are prohibited from even discussing the gender-affirming treatment they are receiving elsewhere. Gender-affirming care is well-studied, necessary and lifesaving care, and we want transgender youth throughout Indiana to know that we will continue fighting for their medical treatment and defending their constitutional rights.”
The Indiana Attorney General’s Office referred Indiana Lawyer to Attorney General Todd Rokita’s November statement posted on X regarding the 7th Circuit ruling, but did not have additional comments Tuesday on the ACLU’s request for a review.
“The Seventh District Court of Appeal’s decision today is a huge win for Hoosiers and will help protect our most precious gift from God — our children,” Rokita wrote at the time. “By rejecting the injunction against our commonsense state law, dangerous and irreversible gender-transition procedures for minors will remain banned in Indiana.”
SEA 480 was enacted in April 2023, and, shortly after, a group of transgender children, their parents, and a physician from Mosaic Health and Healing Arts, Inc. sued Indiana officials for enforcing the law.
The plaintiffs argued the law violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, the First Amendment’s free speech clause and the Affordable Care Act.
Indiana’s Southern District Court granted the ACLU of Indiana’s request for a preliminary injunction in June 2023, which extended to two of the law’s prohibitions: puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy.
That injunction did not extend to the law’s third prohibition, gender reassignment surgery, because no provider in Indiana performs the procedure.
In its November 2024 opinion, the circuit court said SEA 480 does not violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because the law does not classify based on sex.
“The only way SEA 480 implicates sex at all is that the medical treatment at issue is sex specific—it denies each sex access to the other’s hormones. A physician could, if not for SEA 480, prescribe two medical treatments: one exclusively to girls with gender dysphoria—testosterone; and one exclusively to boys with gender dysphoria—estrogen,” the court wrote.
In response to the appellees’ claim that SEA 480 infringes the parent plaintiffs’ authority to make medical decisions for their kids because the law doesn’t include a provision allowing the treatment if the parent does, the court stated that the appellees’ evaluation of the law was too broad.
In its Dec. 27 news release, the ACLU claimed that SEA 480 violates the equal protection clause by prohibiting transgender youth from receiving necessary treatment and that it also violates the due process rights of parents to direct the medical care of their minor children in consultation with medical professionals.
SEA 480 also contains a prohibition on “aiding and abetting” young persons to receive the banned procedures, which the lawsuit’s plaintiffs argue violates the First Amendment rights of medical providers to refer their minor patients to out-of-state practitioners who can lawfully provide this medical care.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge against a similar law in Tennessee. The court is expected to issue a decision in the case in 2025.
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