[Source: Reuters]
The US Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday a bid by President Donald Trump’s administration to immediately enforce a policy restricting gender-affirming care for transgender inmates in federal prisons in a rare win for transgender rights at the nation’s top judicial body.
The court denied the Justice Department’s emergency request to lift a federal judge’s order blocking the Federal Bureau of Prisons from implementing the policy, while a legal challenge to the measure plays out.
The policy, issued in February, prohibits medical and surgical treatments as well as any “social accommodations” such as clothing and hair-removal devices that could be used to alter a person’s appearance to align with their gender identity.
The policy would still allow for psychiatric services to be provided.
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Three transgender inmates incarcerated at federal correctional institutions in New Jersey, Florida and Minnesota filed a class action lawsuit challenging the policy.
The Supreme Court’s brief order gave no explanation for its action, as is common when the justices handle emergency requests. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissented from the decision.
“This ruling will prevent serious and irreparable harm to plaintiffs and the class while we continue to challenge the government’s unlawful efforts to deny medically necessary healthcare for political reasons,” said Aditi Shah, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, which helps represent the inmates challenging the policy.
The Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the decision.
There are more than 2,000 transgender inmates in federal facilities and halfway houses, according to a government figure from 2025.
The new restrictions would reverse the government’s prior procedures. The federal prison system has treated people with gender dysphoria with hormones since at least 1992, according to the plaintiffs.
Gender dysphoria is a term for the clinical diagnosis of significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person’s gender identity and sex at birth.