Supreme Court Refuses to Let Trump Administration Cut Off Hormone Therapy for Transgender Federal Inmates

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 (TodayViralUSA) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to let the Trump administration enforce a new federal prison policy that would have ended hormone therapy and other gender-related care for transgender inmates, leaving a lower-court order in place while the legal fight continues.

The justices turned down the administration’s emergency request in a short, unsigned order that gave no reasoning. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted that they would have granted it. There are roughly 1,000 transgender people in federal custody, NBC News reported.

What the policy would have done

Over the past 18 months, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has announced in a series of directives that it would stop providing gender transition surgery, hormone treatments and “social accommodations” such as wigs, padding and makeup. The final version of the policy was adopted in February, about a year after President Donald Trump signed a first-day executive order directing that no federal funds be spent on treatments meant to align an inmate’s appearance with the opposite sex.

Had the policy taken effect, transgender inmates would largely have been limited to mental health services and medications such as antidepressants. The bureau said it adopted the rule independently of the executive order, citing what it called the latest scientific information and concerns that such care could expose inmates to attacks and breed resentment among other prisoners.

Lower courts found the change unsupported

Three transgender inmates, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a class-action lawsuit arguing the bureau failed to adequately justify the reversal and that the change violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The lead plaintiffs, Alishea Kingdom, Jas Kapule and Solo Nichols, have each received hormone treatment for years.

Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington blocked the policy, writing that the government cited “zero evidence from its own medical or mental health professionals” to support its conclusions. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined in September to pause his ruling, and the administration went to the Supreme Court on Sept. 28.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the trial judge had substituted his own policy judgment for the agency’s and wrongly faulted prison officials for following the president’s directions. ACLU lawyers countered that the bureau has provided hormone therapy since 1992 and changed course abruptly without a sound explanation.

What comes next

Wednesday’s order is not a final ruling on the merits. The case will continue in the lower courts, and the Bureau of Prisons must keep providing the treatments in the meantime.