Divided Supreme Court Pauses End of Hormone Therapy in Federal Prisons

The Supreme Court is blocking the Trump administration from immediately halting hormone therapy and other accommodations for transgender federal inmates as a court case over the treatments plays out.In a Wednesday unsigned, one sentence order, a majority of the justices denied the administration’s application for a stay. The order noted that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would grant the stay.The Bureau of Prisons said, in 2025, that it was giving hormone therapy to more than 600 inmates at taxpayer expense. President Trump signed an executive order that year that prohibited prisons from providing transition-related medical care in federal prisons, blocked “social accommodations” such as wigs and makeup, and mandated the transfer of biological men from women’s facilities to men’s facilities.The bureau implemented new rules this year but said it had independently reconsidered its approach to care based on updated medical advice.Three inmates sued the Trump administration claiming their Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment were being violated. Judge Royce Lamberth of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, blocked the bureau from immediately enforcing the ban as the case, Trump v. Kingdom, plays out. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit previously denied a request to pause the order.In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the solicitor general, John Sauer, argued that “the latest scientific information does not support providing sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations as treatment for inmates with gender dysphoria.” Mr. Sauer also said the medical interventions raise security and prison-administration concerns.In an amicus brief in support of the Trump administration, the conservative non-profit America’s Future stated that “correctional facilities are in the crosshairs of the transgender advocates who want the American taxpayer to pay for, and BOP employees compelled to facilitate, experimentation on prisoners with mental conditions to see if man can defy nature itself.”The brief went on to call the case a “stark reminder” of why the courts have historically granted deference to prison officials to conduct day-to-day operations. “Simply renaming a group of men, some of whom are violent sexual predators, as ‘transgender women’ does not change who they are,” the brief stated. “Placing some of the most dangerous biological men among us in the midst of a captive audience of women, which some support, has been shown to make prisons a target-rich environment for abuse,” it continued.Lawyers for the prisoners argued that the bureau had offered no reasoned explanation for its new policy and that the administration was asking the high court “to overturn a three decades-long status quo.” The prisoners said withdrawing their care would cause significant changes to their bodies and put them at “serious risk of worsening gender dysphoria” and other mental health harms.The majority of the justices agreed to pause the immediate implementation of the ban as the case continues.“Trump and MAGA extremists are obsessed with targeting our community and undermining access to essential healthcare, defying the recommendations of every major medical association in the country,” the Human Right Campaign’s President, Kelley Robinson, said in a statement.“This decision protects trans inmates from the administration’s attempt to steamroll constitutional rights for now,” Ms. Robinson continued.

Divided Supreme Court Pauses End of Hormone Therapy in Federal Prisons

Divided Supreme Court Pauses End of Hormone Therapy in Federal Prisons

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