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Indiana Gov. Holcomb signed SB 480, banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors statewide

On April 5, 2023, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed Senate Enrolled Act 480, barring physicians and other practitioners from knowingly providing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy, or gender-transition surgery to anyone under 18, on pain of professional discipline. The law, which added IC 25-1-22 to the state code, carved out exceptions for minors with medically verifiable intersex conditions and for treating complications of prior care, and required minors already on hormone therapy to stop by December 31, 2023. It took effect July 1, 2023.

Jurisdiction
Indiana
Location
Indianapolis, Indiana

Abuses documented

Actors

On April 5, 2023, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed Senate Enrolled Act No. 480 into law, adding IC 25-1-22 to the Indiana Code and making Indiana one of more than a dozen states to restrict or ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth. The act bars physicians and other practitioners from knowingly providing "gender transition procedures" — puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy, and genital or nongenital gender reassignment surgery — to anyone under 18, and separately bars aiding or abetting another practitioner in doing so, enforced through professional discipline.

The law carved out exceptions for minors with medically verifiable intersex conditions and for treating complications arising from prior gender-transition procedures. Minors already receiving hormone therapy as of June 30, 2023 were permitted to continue only until December 31, 2023, after which they were required to stop. The measure took effect July 1, 2023.

Updates

2024-02-27 — Seventh Circuit lifted injunction, letting the ban take effect [3]

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit allowed Indiana's ban to take effect on February 27, 2024, staying a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon had issued in June 2023 blocking most of the law. The ruling came in a challenge the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana had filed on behalf of transgender youth and their families.

Why we recorded this

Access to an established medical standard of care should not turn on a patient's gender identity, and civil-rights protections exist to stop the state from singling out a class of people for disadvantage. Indiana's SB 480 bars physicians from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgical care to transgender minors specifically, overriding the judgment of patients, their families, and their treating clinicians. This archive records when a government writes a protected characteristic into law as grounds for denying care that remains available to others.

Sources

  1. Senate Enrolled Act No. 480 (2023) — enrolled bill text — Indiana General Assembly primary accessed July 16, 2026
  2. Indiana Gov. Holcomb signs ban on gender-affirming health care — PBS NewsHour / Associated Press secondary accessed July 16, 2026
  3. Federal court rules Indiana ban on gender-affirming care for minors can take effect — PBS NewsHour / Associated Press secondary accessed July 16, 2026

See also