Supreme Court Keeps Pause on Trump's Move to End Transgender Prisoner Care

The US Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must continue providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates in federal prisons, keeping in place a lower court's injunction against the policy.

The decision, in an emergency appeal, maintains the block on a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy that would terminate hormone therapy and other treatments for trans inmates.

The order offered no explanation. It simply read: "The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is denied."

It noted, however, that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have sided with the Trump administration and granted the stay.

A federal district judge, Royce Lamberth, barred the BOP from implementing its policy this summer. A second court, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, also rejected the administration's request to pause that order.

That is when US Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to intervene. With the injunction still in place, the legal battle over the policy continues.

Li Nowlin-Sohl, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union involved in the case, said the organisation believes more than 2,000 people in BOP custody identify as transgender. The BOP stopped publishing data on transgender inmates after Trump took office in 2025; it now records only male or female individuals in the federal system.

The case, Kingdom v. Trump, represents 1,000 inmates who have a gender dysphoria diagnosis, Nowlin-Sohl explained. Of those, the ACLU believes about 800 have been prescribed hormone therapy, and many are also receiving social transition accommodations.

In its request for an emergency stay, the Trump administration argued that providing this care poses several risks, including that recipients of the specialised care could become targets for attacks. It also said the care raises fairness concerns and would breed resentment among other inmates.

Access to gender-affirming care is considered medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria, according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, and can include hormone therapy and surgeries. In its filings, the administration questioned WPATH's standards of care.

The ACLU responded that the BOP has treated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria since at least 1992. Had the treatment been found unhelpful or harmful, or had it compromised security, the agency would surely have said so in the administrative record, the ACLU wrote — calling the omission glaring and the government's current arguments contrived.

The decision sits at odds with other recent rulings backing the administration's agenda. Last June, the court ruled that states can ban transgender girls from sports at publicly funded schools, and in 2025 it upheld state laws barring gender-affirming care for minors.

In one of the first executive orders of his second term, President Trump declared that his administration recognises just two sexes, male and female — an order that has formed the basis for a host of policies. On prison care, however, the Supreme Court has for now kept that policy on hold.