Supreme Court blocks Trump from suspending transgender medical care in federal prisons

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump from suspending hormone therapy and other treatments for transgender Americans in federal prisons , a rare win for transgender rights at the conservative high court.

The court handed down a one-sentence order that did not explain the decision.

Since Trump returned to power last year, the Supreme Court has allowed the administration to ban trans people from serving in the military and permitted a policy that requires that the sex designation on US passports align with a traveler’s sex assigned at birth. The court also this year upheld state laws that prohibit transgender athletes playing on girls’ sports teams .

The latest emergency appeal hit on an issue Trump raised during his 2024 campaign with a series of television advertisements that criticized Democratic nominee Kamala Harris for her approach to trans Americans. On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order barring “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug” for the purpose of “conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

The Bureau of Prisons later implemented a policy that permits psychotherapy and psychiatry services for inmates with gender dysphoria, but not hormone therapies, surgeries or “social accommodations.” That can include items such as clothing and makeup.

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 last 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.”

In its emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the Trump administration argued that it did consider that experience and that the previous treatment and accommodations “raised security and prison-administration concerns that outweighed whatever limited benefits they had.”

Three prisoners who said they had been receiving hormone therapy for years challenged the policy, arguing it was an abrupt change to decades of policy and would end treatment for nearly 1,000 people in custody. The assertion of security concerns within prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union told the Supreme Court, was odd “given that BOP has not pointed to a single security incident relating to its provision of this treatment over the past 30 years.”

Two conservative justices — Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — dissented from Wednesday’s order, but did not say why. The lack of explanation was particularly notable given that the case has been fully briefed and ripe for an order for almost two weeks.

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周三，最高法院阻止了唐纳德·特朗普总统暂停对联邦监狱中的跨性别美国人进行激素治疗和其他治疗的企图，这对于保守的最高法院而言，是跨性别者权利的一次罕见胜利。

法院仅下达了一项只有一句话的命令，并未解释该决定的原因。

自特朗普去年重返政坛以来，最高法院允许其政府禁止跨性别者在军队服役，并允许一项政策规定，美国护照上的性别必须与旅客出生时指定的性别一致。今年，最高法院还维持了各州禁止跨性别运动员参加女子运动队的法律。

最新的紧急呼吁触及了特朗普在2024年竞选期间提出的一个问题。当时，他通过一系列电视广告批评民主党候选人卡马拉·哈里斯对待跨性别美国人的方式。特朗普重返白宫的第一天就签署了一项行政命令，禁止“任何旨在使囚犯外貌与异性相符的医疗程序、治疗或药物”。

监狱管理局后来实施了一项政策，允许为患有性别焦虑症的囚犯提供心理治疗和精神病学服务，但不允许进行激素治疗、手术或提供“社会便利”。这些“社会便利”可能包括衣物和化妆品等物品。

美国华盛顿特区的一家地方法院和一家联邦上诉法院阻止了特朗普政府的这项政策在短期内生效。上个月，哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院在一份简短的命令中得出结论，认为政府的这项政策很可能是武断且反复无常的，因为联邦监狱管理局没有“充分”考虑“其自身在先前政策下提供性别肯定治疗的经验”。

特朗普政府向最高法院紧急上诉，辩称它确实考虑过那次经历，并且之前的待遇和便利“引发了安全和监狱管理方面的担忧，超过了它们所带来的任何有限的好处”。

三名自称已接受激素治疗多年的囚犯对这项政策提出质疑，认为这是对数十年来政策的突然改变，并将终止近千名在押人员的治疗。美国公民自由联盟向最高法院表示，联邦监狱管理局（BOP）声称出于监狱安全考虑而终止治疗的做法“很奇怪，因为BOP在过去30年中从未指出过任何一起与其提供该项治疗相关的安全事件”。

两名保守派大法官——克拉伦斯·托马斯和塞缪尔·阿利托——对周三的裁决持反对意见，但并未说明原因。考虑到此案已完成所有案情陈述，且已接近两周之久，这种缺乏解释的情况尤其引人注目。