Trump Asks the Supreme Court to Let Prisons Cut Off Care for Transgender Inmates
The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal after a federal judge and the D.C. Circuit kept a Bureau of Prisons policy on hold. The rules would end hormone therapy and items like wigs and chest binders.
The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to let the federal Bureau of Prisons enforce a policy that would end hormone therapy, surgery and social accommodations for transgender inmates while a legal challenge to the rules plays out.
The emergency request, filed by Solicitor General D. John Sauer, targets an order issued last month by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington. That order keeps barring the bureau from applying its new rules to any inmate who is, or will be, diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and requires the government to keep providing medical care to a class of transgender prisoners. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused to put the policy back in force while the appeal moves forward.
The fight began soon after President Trump took office for his second term and signed an executive order barring the use of federal money for gender-transition medical treatments for people in federal prisons. The bureau then issued guidance banning staff from approving clothing accommodations for transgender inmates. A group of inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria sued.
In February the bureau issued a new policy that it said stood on its own, apart from the president's order. Under those rules, inmates with gender dysphoria would still get mental health services, but the bureau would no longer provide surgery, hormone therapy or items such as chest binders, wigs and breast padding. Lamberth blocked the new policy in June, ruling in part that it had been "reverse engineered" to carry out the executive order, and extended that block last month.
In its filing, the administration accused the district court of "substituting its own policy judgment for that of the agency." Sauer wrote that the bureau had determined the policy was "necessary to maintain institutional security," and that the lower court order "nullifies" that judgment and "prevents the application of the Executive's chosen policy" across the board.
The appeal adds to a long list of emergency requests the administration has brought to the justices this year, many of them asking the court to pause lower-court orders that block White House policies while the underlying cases proceed. The court has sided with the administration on several transgender-related disputes, including allowing its passport policy to take effect and letting it enforce a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
The case will first go to Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency applications from the D.C. Circuit. He can act alone or refer the request to the full court, and he is likely to ask the inmates' lawyers to respond before the justices decide. The Supreme Court opens its new term next week.
