Federal judge orders Indiana Department of Correction to provide gender-affirming surgery to inmate

A federal judge has ordered the Indiana Department of Correction to provide a transgender inmate with gender-affirming surgery.

The judge’s ruling found that a law banning such care likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Autumn Cordellioné has been incarcerated since 2002. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria in 2020 and applied repeatedly to the IDOC for gender-affirming surgery.

Gender-affirming care is health care that encompasses mental, social, medicinal and surgical care designed to treat gender dysphoria. And gender dysphoria is a clinically significant distress experienced by people whose gender assigned at birth and gender identity don’t match — though not all transgender people experience gender dysphoria.

The ACLU of Indiana, on behalf of Cordellioné, sued the state shortly after a 2023 ban on such surgeries took effect.

Judge Richard Young finds that law, HEA 1569, is likely unconstitutional. In his ruling, he said that Cordellioné has a history of suicide attempts and has tried self-surgery to remove her genitals. And he said there’s widespread medical consensus that providing gender-affirming surgery is a safe, therapeutic and effective way to treat such gender dysphoria.

READ MORE: What is gender-affirming care?
 

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The state largely relied on the testimony of a psychiatrist that never met Cordellioné and is considered an "outlier in the field of gender dysphoria" by several courts.

The judge’s decision also found that the ban is sex discrimination that likely violates the 14th Amendment.

Young’s ruling only applies to Cordellioné and does not halt or strike down the Indiana law more broadly.
 

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.