DOJ pleads with Supreme Court to save ban on transgender treatments in federal prisons

The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let federal prison officials enforce a policy that bars hormone treatments and social accommodations for transgender inmates, seeking to overturn a lower-court block while litigation continues. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices the Bureau of Prisons acted reasonably by favoring mental-health care over what he called "medically disputed and unproven sex-rejecting interventions." The policy, adopted in February, halts surgeries that alter sex traits, ends hormone therapy for inmates not already receiving it, and stops accommodations such as padding, chest binders, makeup, wigs and undergarments inconsistent with an inmate's biological sex, according to Fox News.

The fight traces back to a lawsuit by federal inmates challenging a Trump executive order that cut federal funding for transgender medical care behind bars. In June, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, appointed by Ronald Reagan, directed the Bureau of Prisons to keep providing such treatment, finding officials had not adequately justified singling out gender dysphoria for different handling and had ignored the agency's own history of following World Professional Association for Transgender Health guidelines. The Justice Department's Supreme Court filing dismisses those guidelines as scientifically flawed, biased and unreliable, and contends judges owe prison administrators heightened deference on medical policy. A federal appeals panel had already refused to let the policy take effect while the case proceeds, prompting the administration's emergency request to the high court.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →