The U.S. Supreme Court on the 21st declined the Trump administration’s emergency request to lift a lower-court block on restrictions on gender-related medical care for transgender federal prisoners. The block stays in place while the case continues.
According to CNN and The Hill, the justices denied the administration’s emergency application to undo a lower-court order halting a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy. The Court gave no reasons, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reportedly dissented. Some reports described the vote as 7-2, with a qualifier that it was apparent rather than formally stated.
광고 문의 · 300×250At issue is BOP Program Statement 5260.01. As the ACLU describes it, after a January 2025 executive order the BOP barred federal funds for hormone therapy and social accommodations such as gender-appropriate clothing and commissary items, and in February 2026 this policy replaced earlier memos while keeping the same bans.
The lower court and both sides’ arguments
The case began in March 2025 as a class action on behalf of roughly 1,000 people in federal prisons. A federal district court in Washington issued a preliminary injunction on June 17, 2026, and the D.C. Circuit had first denied the government’s stay request. The lower court reportedly found the administration offered no evidence these treatments had caused security problems and that the policy appeared reverse-engineered to carry out the executive order.
The administration argued courts should defer to the BOP on prison security and administration, and that the treatments are not medically necessary and their withdrawal would not harm inmates. Inmates and groups such as the ACLU countered that the BOP overrode its own providers’ clinical judgment and would upend roughly three decades of practice.
The ruling concerns an emergency application, not the merits, so the litigation continues. Because the Court gave no explanation, its precise legal reasoning is not known.
