President Donald Trump’s administration urged the Supreme Court on Monday to allow federal prison officials to deny certain types of medical care for transgender inmates, such as surgeries – putting another culture war issue on the high court’s burgeoning fast-track docket.
The Bureau of Prisons policy that began early in Trump’s second term – and that was modified after an early round of court battles – permits psychotherapy and psychiatry services for inmates with gender dysphoria, but not hormone therapies, surgeries or “social accommodations.”
The appeal reached the 6-3 conservative Supreme Court at a time when LGBTQ Americans have faced a series of legal setbacks, including back-to-back decisions in recent years that have allowed states to ban transgender care for minors and permitted states to prohibit transgender athletes from playing on girls’ sports teams in school.
Trump made clamping down on legal victories secured by transgender Americans a centerpiece of his presidential campaign in 2024, and his administration, with the Supreme Court’s help, has moved to ban trans people from serving in the military and to require that sex designation on US passports align with a traveler’s biological sex.
“The public interest substantially outweighs any irreparable harm to respondents,” the Justice Department told the Supreme Court in its emergency appeal. “The 2026 policy provides appropriate, individualized treatment for gender dysphoria, while disallowing only interventions that are medically unnecessary.”
In a series of rulings this year, a US district court and a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, blocked the Trump policy from taking effect in the short term. In a brief order earlier this month, the DC Circuit concluded that the administration’s policy was likely arbitrary and capricious because the Bureau of Prisons had not “adequately” considered “its own experience providing gender affirming care under its prior policy.”
The rush appeal, which the court will likely decide within a few weeks, was the latest in a deluge of emergency litigation the administration has filed at the Supreme Court in recent weeks. The justices are already considering a high-profile appeal seeking to remove migrants to countries other than their homeland without giving them an opportunity to raise human rights concerns.
Over the summer the court weighed Trump-related cases dealing with mail ballots, the White House ballroom and efforts to identify non-citizen voters.