The Supreme Court declined Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to implement a policy ending transgender procedures for federal prisoners as a legal challenge continues.
The court rejected the administration’s request to pause a lower court’s order blocking the Bureau of Prisons policy. The court’s order did not explain its reasoning, but it did note that conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the Trump administration’s request.
The Justice Department plans to continue defending the policy before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
“While we’re disappointed in the Court’s order, this isn’t a final decision on the merits,” a Justice Department spokesman told The Daily Wire. “We look forward to pursuing our appeal in the DC Circuit to reinstate BOP’s policy that affirms biological reality.”
The order comes after three gender-confused federal prisoners, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued on behalf of a nationwide class of inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
In a stay request filed last month, the Justice Department noted that 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.”
Previously, the Bureau of Prisons offered both psychiatric services and medical procedures, including sex-change surgeries and cross-sex hormones, to prisoners with gender dysphoria. There are about 1,000 transgender-identifying prisoners in federal detention.
Under Trump, the Justice Department said that the Bureau of Prisons decided to “address gender dysphoria by providing mental-health treatment, but will no longer provide sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, or social accommodations.”
The policy was supported by an executive order from President Donald Trump, though the Bureau of Prisons said it adopted the policy independently, citing security concerns and its determination that standards pushed by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health were not reliable.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, blocked the policy after finding that the prisoners were likely to succeed on their claim that it was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The judge also directed the Bureau of Prisons to continue providing medical treatment for the transgender-identifying prisoners under its prior policy.
“Denying individuals with gender dysphoria the ability to socially transition or obtain hormone therapy will predictably lead to mental health risks,” he said. “These risks include exacerbated depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and self-harm.”
The Justice Department argued that the lower court’s order caused irreparable harm to the government and to the public by “nullifying [Bureau of Prisons’] exercise of its statutorily conferred authority to adopt a policy that prison administrators have determined is necessary to maintain institutional security.”
The Supreme Court previously ruled that states can ban transgender procedures for kids and keep males who identify as girls off of female sports teams.
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