Supreme Court Leaves Injunction Blocking Trump Administration's Transgender Inmate Policy in Place
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Image: NPR.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to revive a federal Bureau of Prisons policy that would have ended hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments for transgender inmates in federal prisons, leaving a lower court’s injunction in place while litigation over the policy continues, according to NPR and NBC News.
In a brief order without explanation, the justices denied the administration’s emergency application, which had asked the court to pause U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s injunction barring the bureau from implementing the policy. The order stated that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the application. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had also rejected the administration’s request to pause the order before Solicitor General D. John Sauer took the case to the Supreme Court, NPR reported.
Over the past 18 months, the Bureau of Prisons announced it would no longer provide gender transition surgery, hormone treatments, or “social accommodations” such as wigs, padding, or makeup, NBC News reported. Had the policy taken effect, transgender inmates could have received mental-health services and potentially medications such as antidepressants, but not the other treatments. The government said such treatments have been called into question by medical professionals, a claim NBC News noted is heavily contested by transgender rights advocates.
Sources differ on the population affected: the ACLU’s senior staff attorney Li Nowlin-Sohl told NPR the organization believes more than 2,000 people in bureau custody identify as transgender, while NBC News reported about 1,000 transgender inmates in federal custody. The bureau stopped publishing data reflecting transgender inmates after Trump took office in 2025, NPR said. The legal battle over the policy continues in lower courts.