WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let it enforce, for now, restrictions on gender-affirming care in federal prison.
The emergency appeal comes after lower courts blocked officials from immediately carrying out the policy adopted after an executive order from President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the government to continue providing gender-affirming care like hormone therapy.
The Trump administration argues that the policy was properly adopted and the judge overstepped. It halts surgeries, hormones and social accommodations like wigs while allowing mental health therapy to continue.
It was adopted after an executive order required the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so that federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The government asked the high court to freeze Lamberth’s order while the lawsuit continues to play out, saying the Bureau of Prisons had “determined that sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations could no longer be justified as treatment for gender dysphoria.”
The agency said in 2025 that it was providing hormone therapy to more than 600 inmates.
The bureau doesn’t dispute that gender dysphoria can cause severe side effects, including depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, Lamberth wrote. The Washington-based judge was nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan.
An divided appeals court panel left the order in place.
ACLU attorneys for the inmates said the policy is “a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights,” and withholding necessary gender-affirming healthcare constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
The conservative-majority Supreme Court has previously upheld state laws banning certain medical treatments for transgender youth, and restricting sports participation by transgender athletes in women’s sports.
It has also handed down shorter term decisions allowing the Trump administration to move ahead for now with other policies rolling back protections for transgender people serving in the military and holding a passport consistent with their gender identity.
— Lindsay Whitehurst