Supreme Court keeps block on Trump policy to cut care for transgender prisoners
The justices refused to pause a judge's order, so federal prisons must keep providing hormone therapy while the case goes on.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to let the Trump administration enforce a new policy that would stop transgender inmates in federal prisons from receiving hormone therapy and "social accommodations" such as makeup and wigs. In a brief, unsigned order, the court turned down the Federal Bureau of Prisons' request to pause a lower court ruling.
Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said, without explanation, that they would have granted the administration's request. The court did not give its reasons.
The prisons bureau adopted the policy in February, about a year after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term directing that no federal funds be spent on treatments meant to make an inmate's appearance conform to the opposite sex. Three transgender inmates filed a class-action lawsuit, and in August Senior US District Judge Royce Lamberth barred the policy. An appeals court refused to freeze his order.
The administration argued that the judge had substituted his own judgment for that of prison officials. The inmates said withdrawing care would cause significant changes to their bodies and put them at serious risk of worsening gender dysphoria, depression and self-harm. The case now continues in federal court in Washington.