The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision Wednesday, prevented the Trump administration from challenging a policy that allows federal funds to support prisoners’ gender transitions.
The majority justices on the high court did not block an order in Trump v. Kingdom, a case challenging the federal Bureau of Prisons policy to allow prisoners access to transgender operations. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would not have blocked the lower court’s order.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed multiple executive orders to establish biological sex as a determining factor in federal administrative cases.
The administration sought to prevent federal funds from going to transgender surgeries for prisoners.
Approximately 1,000 federal prisoners identify as transgender, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Lawyers for transgender inmates argued that the order was arbitrary and capricious, with implications for civil rights laws regarding transgender people.
“[The Board of Prison’s] sudden reversal of its own longstanding policy of providing hormone therapy and social transition accommodations based on individual assessments of clinical need was arbitrary and capricious,” lawyers for transgender inmates told the high court.
The Trump administration argued the board’s reversal came after federal authorities determined that sex trait modification surgeries and hormone therapy were not proper treatments for individuals with gender dysmorphia.
“Those interventions raised security and prison-administration concerns that outweighed whatever limited benefits they had,” lawyers for the Trump administration wrote.
However, lawyers for the transgender inmates said the policy change would cause severe harm to transgender individuals in the prison system.
“The Program Statement would cause irreparable harm to all members of the Class because it imposes a categorical ban on hormone therapy and social transition accommodations without regard to individualized need for those interventions, putting all class members at risk of being denied the care they need,” lawyers for the inmates wrote.
The high court will not hear or intervene in the case this term. Justices on the court do not have plans to hear cases regarding transgender issues in the upcoming term.
In June, the justices ruled in favor of state bans on biological men competing in women’s and girls’ sports.