The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let the Trump administration immediately enforce sweeping new restrictions on gender-affirming care for transgender people held in federal prisons, an unusual rebuff from a court that has largely sided with the administration in other major clashes over transgender rights this term.
The order leaves in place a lower-court injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who had directed the Bureau of Prisons to continue providing hormone therapy and related care to transgender inmates while the underlying legal fight continues. The policy the administration sought to enforce would halt gender-affirming surgeries, hormone treatment and accommodations such as access to gender-affirming clothing, while still permitting mental health therapy to continue.
A Policy Defended on Security Grounds
Solicitor General D. John Sauer had argued in filings that the Bureau of Prisons policy was lawfully enacted under the agency's rulemaking authority and should be allowed to take effect while litigation proceeds. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had already rejected the government's bid to pause Lamberth's order last month, teeing up the emergency application that reached the justices this week.
Lawyers for the affected inmates, represented in part by the American Civil Liberties Union, had urged the court to leave the lower-court order in place, calling the policy "a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights." The order itself did not include a detailed opinion explaining the justices' reasoning, which is typical for rulings on emergency applications.
A Rare Loss for the Administration
The decision stands out because the current Supreme Court has largely sided with the Trump administration and other opponents of transgender rights in several major cases this term, including disputes over military service and school sports participation. Wednesday's order does not resolve the underlying legal question of whether the Bureau of Prisons policy is lawful — it simply keeps Lamberth's injunction in place while the case continues through the ordinary appeals process, a process that could still take months or longer to reach a final resolution.
The case is one of several working through federal courts this year testing the limits of the administration's authority to roll back federal protections and accommodations for transgender Americans across government agencies, from the military to immigration enforcement to, now, the federal prison system. Advocacy groups described Wednesday's order as a meaningful, if narrow, check on that broader push, while administration officials signaled they would continue to press the underlying policy through the normal appellate process rather than abandon it.
