Legal professionals for a gaggle of transgender inmates within the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to go away in place an order by a federal choose in Washington, D.C., that bars the BOP from implementing a brand new coverage on healthcare for transgender inmates that may stop such inmates from acquiring (amongst different issues) hormone remedy and “social lodging” (similar to make-up, wigs, and padding). Li Nowlin-Sohl, representing the inmates, advised the justices that the Trump administration is asking the justices “to overturn a 3 decades-long established order.”
The Trump administration adopted the coverage earlier this yr. It adopted a coverage adopted in February 2025 to implement an executive order signed by President Donald Trump shortly after his second inauguration. That order directed the lawyer normal to “be sure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical process, therapy, or drug for the aim of conforming an inmate’s look to that of the other intercourse.”
When it adopted the February 2026 coverage, which the BOP mentioned that it did “independently of” Trump’s Feb. 2025 govt order, the BOP additionally included an intensive administrative report and a 43-page memorandum wherein it attributed the change from its prior coverage to, amongst different issues, “the most recent scientific info.” Particularly, it mentioned, its earlier insurance policies had relied on suggestions by the World Skilled Affiliation for Transgender Well being, however that group’s requirements had been deemed “unreliable” and “unpersuasive” by jail directors. Furthermore, the BOP expressed issues that offering entry to procedures similar to gender-transition surgical procedures might topic transgender prisoners to “assaults,” “elevate equity issues,” and “breed resentment amongst different inmates.”
Three transgender inmates went to federal courtroom in Washington, D.C., in search of to file a category motion lawsuit to dam the enforcement of the coverage. On Aug. 26, Senior U.S. District Decide Royce Lamberth issued his most recent order barring the BOP from implementing its 2026 coverage, and on Sept. 18 a divided panel of the U.S. Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the federal government’s request to pause Lamberth’s order.
The Trump administration then went to the Supreme Court on Sept. 28, asking the justices to step in and block Lamberth’s order. U.S. Solicitor Common D. John Sauer told the Supreme Courtroom that the district courtroom had “substitut[ed] its personal coverage judgment for that of the” BOP, “rel[ied] on proof exterior the executive report, and fault[ed] the company for following presidential instructions.” Furthermore, he added, the district courtroom “additionally denied jail directors the substantial deference they’re due.”
Of their submitting on Thursday, the inmates argued that the brand new coverage fell quick underneath the federal legal guidelines governing administrative companies as a result of the BOP had not supplied a “reasoned rationalization” for its resolution. For instance, Nowlin-Sohl wrote, the intensive report that the BOP had supplied was “silent about BOP’s intensive expertise offering” hormone remedy and social lodging “and whether or not it helps” BOP’s conclusions that “this care shouldn’t be medically obligatory and poses safety and administrative points.” The report, the transient continued, can also be “devoid of any proof indicating whether or not BOP healthcare suppliers discovered this care efficient, ineffective, or dangerous to sufferers.”
Furthermore, the inmates mentioned, the BOP had “lower off therapy that its healthcare suppliers had really helpful for many years and changed it with psychotherapy” and “psychotropic drugs” – which “BOP’s Medical Director acknowledges … deal with co-existing circumstances similar to despair and anxiousness, not gender dysphoria itself.” And the BOP’s failure to incorporate “key proof” within the report “make[s] it clear that the rationales had been contrived to help the demand President Trump made within the EO.”
Lastly, the inmates advised the justices that they are going to be completely harmed if the district courtroom’s order is paused. “Withdrawing care will trigger important adjustments to their our bodies and put [them] and sophistication members at critical danger of worsening gender dysphoria in addition to different psychological well being signs together with despair, anxiousness, self-harm, and suicidality.”