US Supreme Court allows gender-affirming care for trans people in federal prisons

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday denied the Trump administration's emergency request to implement a rule that would terminate gender-affirming care for transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons. 

It means a lower court order that blocked the policy from going into effect will remain in place for now, and gender-affirming healthcare for transgender inmates will continue. 

“This is a critical ruling for our clients and all transgender people in Bureau of Prisons custody,” Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “The denial of medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care, to people in prison is a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights.”  

The order did not give an explanation. But conservative Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas noted that they would have sided with the Trump administration’s request to stop treatments by lifting a lower court's injunction. 

The block has been in place since June 2025 by the District Court for the District of Columbia.

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s executive order that prevented the Bureau of Prisons from providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates.

In response, the American Civil Liberties Union sued, representing roughly 1,000 transgender inmates who have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is treated with gender-affirming care such as hormone therapy and other care. 

The class action lawsuit was filed first by two transgender men and one transgender woman at federal prisons in Florida, Minnesota and New Jersey.

The suit argued that the policy violated the Eighth Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. 

In a brief to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argued that it rejects recommendations from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, previously followed by the Bureau of Prisons. The Department of Justice contended the recommendations “did not reflect the latest scientific information,” and that the prior policy “raised security and prison-administration concerns that outweighed whatever limited benefits they had.”