A federal court sided with Indiana on Friday in upholding a state law prohibiting “horrific” “trans” surgeries from being conducted on children.
“We have won this critical fight against radicals who would otherwise impose this horrific practice on our kids for ideological and financial reasons,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said in a statement. “My office will keep standing between our children and those who would sacrifice their health, innocence, and well-being on the altar of woke gender ideology.”
In a short order, U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon, a Trump appointee, entered final judgment in favor of the Hoosier State in a lawsuit brought by the left-wing American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). In doing so, he dismissed the leftist group’s claims “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot refile the same claims again in court.
According to local media, the law in question was signed by former Gov. Eric Holcomb in 2023. Its provisions bar minors from accessing harmful “hormone replacement therapies, puberty blockers, and surgeries in the state.”
Following its enactment, the ACLU sued in federal court challenging the law. After a lower court initially agreed to block the statute, an appeal from Rokita’s office to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals resulted in that blockade being lifted.
As described by the Indiana AG’s office, the 7th Circuit again sided with Rokita in November 2024, “revers[ing] the lower court, and [holding] that the law does not violate the Constitution.” With no path forward, the ACLU reportedly “abandoned the rest of the case,” culminating in Friday’s judgment.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld state laws protecting children from leftist-backed “trans” experiments in its U.S. v. Skrmetti (2025) decision. Writing for the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts held that such statutes do not violate the 14th Amendment and that “questions regarding the law’s policy are thus appropriately left to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”
As The Federalist previously reported, so-called “gender affirming care” has “been shown to have extremely negative effects on children,” with data showing that “[p]uberty blockers, for example, may cause future infertility and loss of bone density.” Many studies also show that minors diagnosed with “gender dysphoria” are prone to grow out of it by the time they reach adulthood.
More than half of U.S. states have reportedly passed laws restricting practitioners from performing damaging “trans” procedures on children.
