Supreme Court rejects Trump policy restricting treatment of transgender inmates

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration cannot enforce a new policy restricting the treatment of transgender inmates in federal prisons.

The justices in a brief order rejected an emergency request filed by the administration that sought to block a lower court injunction against the proposal. There are approximately 1,000 transgender inmates in federal institutions.

The policy is part of President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to roll back measures to expand transgender rights. This was announced in accordance with his January 2025 executive order telling federal agencies not to recognize the concept of gender identity outside of the “immutable biological classification” of male or female.

The court order contained no explanation, saying only that two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, would have granted it.

In several different announcements, the Bureau of Prisons over the past 18 months has said it will not provide gender transition surgery, hormone treatments or “social accommodations” such as wigs, padding or makeup.

This reversed previous policies that allowed gender-affirming care, with the government saying such treatments had recently been questioned by medical professionals. This claim is strongly disputed by transgender rights advocates.

If this policy had gone into effect, the only treatment transgender inmates could have received would be mental health services and potentially medications like antidepressants.

A group of transgender inmates filed a lawsuit, with support from the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing that the government had failed to adequately explain the change. They also alleged a violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

The lead plaintiffs in the case, Alishea Kingdom, Jas Kapule and Solo Nichols, have all been receiving hormone treatment for several years.

Washington-based U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the current policy in a ruling earlier this year, finding that the Bureau of Prisons failed to consider the merits of past treatment of transgender inmates when formulating the plan.

“Despite providing gender-affirming care to inmates in its custody for years, the government cites no evidence in the program statement from its own medical or mental health professionals to support its findings,” he wrote. The government has not provided any evidence that the previous plan was “ineffective or harmful”, he added.

Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, also believed that the proposal appeared to have been designed precisely to comply with the president’s executive order, concluding that the reasons given were pretext.

In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected a request from the Trump administration to block the judge’s final ruling, with the panel split 2-1.

In court papers, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the lower court was guilty of “substituting its own political judgment for that of the agency” and essentially faulted the Bureau of Prisons for following the president’s executive order.

ACLU attorneys said in court papers that the Bureau of Prisons has provided hormone therapy to inmates since 1992 while gradually expanding access to other treatments and social accommodations.

This abrupt change without necessary explanation “gives rise to the conclusion that the agency’s purported reasons were not its real reasons,” the lawyers wrote. “This glaring omission, along with the unreasonableness of his decision, makes it clear that the justifications were designed to support the request made by President Trump” in the executive order.

The case marks a rare recent victory for transgender rights advocates on the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

In June, the court upheld the state’s bans on transgender athletes seeking to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. A year earlier, the court upheld state laws banning gender transition treatments for transgender youth.

The court also allowed Trump to ban transgender people from the military.