Seven hundred and seven days after Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced that Alberta intended to protect minors from medical transitioning, the province has fully implemented that commitment. Alberta now fully bans sex-denying surgeries for minors. Albertans under 16 may not be given puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones, unless they already started taking them. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds can access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with parental, physician and psychologist approval.
This is a huge triumph! Alberta is the first province in Canada to legally restrict these harmful interventions.
But it wasn’t an easy path to get here. After many legislative hurdles and judicial interventions, let’s chronicle how this came to be.
January 31, 2024 – Danielle Smith announces on social media her government’s plan to restrict medical transitioning for minors, require parental notification or permission for a child to socially transition at school, and preserve women’s-only sports. This announcement came as a surprise as it was not part of the United Conservative Party’s election platform.
October 31, 2024 – The main piece of legislation to ban medical transitioning for minors, Bill 26: Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 (No.2), was introduced in the Alberta legislature. The bill contained three important clauses. Section 1.91 prohibits sex-denying surgeries for all minors. Section 1.92 prohibits puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones for all minors under 18, though Section 1.93 allows the Minister of Health to create exceptions.
December 5, 2024 – Bill 26 receives royal assent. The prohibition on sex-denying surgeries for minors goes into effect immediately, but the sections dealing with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones do not. The government claims that the ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will come into effect once the Minister of Health crafts and signs a ministerial order allowing mature minors and those already on these drugs to access them.
July 27, 2025 – Justice Allison G. Kuntz issues an injunction preventing the ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones from going into effect. Various pro-LGBTQ organizations, parents, and children challenged the legislation in court. Justice Kuntz opined that this ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones might infringe on the Charter right to equality and to life, liberty, and security of the person. Until these rights can be considered in full in a future case, she temporarily blocked the ban on hormonal transitioning from going into effect. The ban on sex-denying surgeries was left unchallenged and remained in force.
September 8, 2025 – Health Minister Adriana LaGrange creates exceptions for the blanket ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors in Ministerial Order 31/2025. These exceptions allow minors who had already started these hormonal interventions or started these interventions in another province to continue to receive these drugs. The order also allows mature minors aged 16 and 17 to access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones with parental, physician, and psychologist approval. It also exempts children with an intersex condition who also experience gender dysphoria.
November 18, 2025 – The Alberta government invokes the notwithstanding clause in Bill 9: Protecting Alberta’s Children Statutes Amendment Act, 2025. The notwithstanding clause is a constitutional provision that allows laws passed by the elected legislature to remain constitutional notwithstanding the decisions of appointed courts. However, the constitution stipulates that the notwithstanding clause expires every five years unless renewed by another act of the legislature.
December 11, 2025 – Bill 9 receives royal assent. This law nullifies Justice Kuntz’ injunction preventing the ban on hormonal transition from coming into effect and paves the way for the full set of restrictions on medical transitioning for minors to come into force. It also prevents any future court decisions from striking down the restrictions.
January 7, 2026 – Alberta brings the ban on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones into effect. It is now illegal to prescribe puberty blockers or cross sex hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria, with exceptions for mature minors, those who were already on these hormones, and those with an intersex condition.
This brings us up to the present. But that is by no means the end of the story.
The government is still appealing the temporary injunction against the ban on hormonal transitioning by Justice Kuntz. Furthermore, Egale and company are still waiting for the court to officially opine on whether the ban violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In some ways, the outcomes of these two cases don’t matter. Even if the judges find the ban violates certain sections of the Charter, the ban is saved by the notwithstanding clause of the Charter. However, a ruling by the courts that the ban on medical transitioning for minors does violate the Charter rights of gender dysphoric children will likely sap public support for the ban.
Also, the notwithstanding clause protecting this ban expires on December 11, 2030, unless it is renewed by the government. If the clause is allowed to expire and if the courts rule that the ban on medical transitioning is unconstitutional, then gender dysphoric children will again be at risk of the harmful and potentially irreversible consequences of gender medicine.
But until then, Alberta is leading the way in Canada in letting kids be.