The U.S. Supreme Court today (Wednesday, Oct. 21) rejected a request from the Trump administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to allow prison officials to withhold gender-affirming health care from transgender people in federal prisons, according to a press release from the ACLU.
The court did so by denying a stay request from the administration against a preliminary injunction issued by a lower federal court in June that blocked officials from enforcing a new policy that would reverse decades of BOP policy and deny access to such health care altogether.
Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff Attorney with the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said, “This is a critical ruling for our clients and all transgender people in Bureau of Prisons custody. The denial of medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care, to people in prison is a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights. We will continue to defend the rights of our clients and all incarcerated people.”
Shawn Thomas Meerkamper, managing attorney at Transgender Law Center, added, “Today’s ruling affirms that everyone, trans or not, deserves access to medically necessary health care and to be treated with dignity in federal custody. We will continue fighting to ensure that all people confined to federal prisons can access the care they need.”
And Aditi Shah, staff attorney with ACLU-D.C. said, “The court was clear: The BOP cannot illegitimately deny people critical health care while the government’s appeal proceeds. 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 health care for political reasons.”
Trump issued an executive order in January 2025 prohibiting gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prisons. The BOP then issued memoranda implementing the ban, prohibiting the use of federal funds to provide hormone therapy or social accommodations such as gender-appropriate clothing and commissary items to treat gender dysphoria.
Then in March 2025, two transgender men and one transgender woman serving sentences in federal facilities in New Jersey, Minnesota and Florida filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of approximately 1,000 transgender people in BOP custody against the Trump Administration and BOP, challenging the ban on gender-affirming health care.
In June 2025, the federal district court in Washington, D.C. preliminarily enjoined the ban.
In February this year, BOP issued Program Statement 5260.01, replacing the implementing memoranda but still prohibiting gender-affirming health care to treat gender dysphoria, including hormone therapy and social accommodations, the ACLU press release said. After plaintiffs filed a supplemental complaint and motion to preliminarily enjoin the Program Statement, on June 17, the federal district court in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction, blocking BOP from enforcing the Program Statement and ordering BOP to continue providing gender-affirming care pursuant to its pre-EO policy while the lawsuit proceeds.
The Trump administration and BOP appealed that decision and moved to stay the injunction pending appeal so that BOP could immediately start withholding people’s health care. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia rejected the appeal earlier, prompting the administration and BOP to appeal to the Supreme Court. Today’s decision from the Supreme Court also denies the request, permitting the district court’s preliminary injunction to remain in place as the case proceeds.
The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the ACLU, the ACLU of DC, and the Transgender Law Center.
— Tammye Nash