A panel of judges on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the law's restrictions are within the purview of the Indiana General Assembly and do not infringe on the rights of children, their parents, or medical providers.
"It was a really good feeling to hear from the 7th Circuit just affirming all of our hard work that we put in to protect kids in Indiana," Indiana state Sen. Dr. Tyler Johnson (R-District 14) told AFN.
Johnson wrote the bill. Legislators met with "dozens of people who have been affected" by gender manipulation therapies and procedures and regretted having gone down that road.
"I'm a physician, and it's pretty easy to see that good, sound medicine was not, really not even medicine in general, being followed," said Johnson.
The 7th Circuit previously allowed the law to take effect by removing a temporary injunction that had blocked the law.
New appeal possible but unlikely
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) brought the case and called the appeals court decision
"heartbreaking," adding that it would "continue to challenge this law until it is permanently defeated" in Indiana.
"It could still be appealed," said Johnson. "The 7th Circuit panel had a lot of good comments on the bill, and it was really affirmed the way that they presented it in the first place, so, I don't make any predictions, but I would be surprised if they kept pushing it the way it was handed down."
Since working on the bill, Johnson said he has been in contact with legislators from Maine to California asking about his legislation.
Enacted in 2023, the law was set to go into effect on July 1 of that year, but one month before, U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon blocked the state from prohibiting miinors’ access to hormone therapies and puberty blockers but allowed the law’s prohibition on gender-affirming surgeries to take effect.
