Supreme Court Keeps Transgender Inmate Care in Place
The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, that the Trump administration must keep providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates in federal prisons while litigation continues. The court denied the administration's emergency request to pause a lower court order, which leaves that order in place. NPR reported the decision.
The order blocks a policy from the Bureau of Prisons, the federal agency that runs federal prisons, that would end hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments for transgender inmates. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth barred the bureau from carrying out that policy in summer 2026.
The Supreme Court's order was unsigned and did not give a reason for the decision. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the administration's request.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had earlier rejected the administration's request to pause Lamberth's injunction. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the Justice Department's top lawyer for cases before the Supreme Court, then asked the justices to intervene. The emergency application is docketed as No. 26A416 and captioned Kingdom v. Trump.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the case represents 1,000 inmates who have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and about 800 of them have been prescribed hormone therapy. The ACLU estimates there are more than 2,000 transgender people in Bureau of Prisons custody. The ACLU also said the bureau has treated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria since at least 1992.
In its emergency request, the administration argued that inmates receiving gender-affirming care would become targets for attacks. It also argued that the care raises fairness concerns that would breed resentment among other inmates. The respondents in the case opposed the request in a brief dated October 8, 2026.
In a reply brief filed on October 9, the government argued that the 2026 Bureau of Prisons policy rests on the premise that gender dysphoria is a mental-health condition.
