The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to let federal prisons enforce a ban on hormone treatments for transgender inmates, a policy lower courts have blocked.
On Monday, the Justice Department urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block a lower-court ruling so the Bureau of Prisons can immediately enforce its updated policy on gender dysphoria. Fox News reported the filing seeks to restore limits on taxpayer-funded hormone treatments and social accommodations inside federal lockups.
U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the high court the Bureau of Prisons acted within reasoned bounds when it chose mental-health care over contested medical interventions.
"BOP’s decision to prioritize mental-health treatment, while discontinuing medically disputed and unproven sex-rejecting interventions, falls well within the bounds of reasoned decision-making,"
Sauer wrote in the petition.
The fight reaches the justices after a district judge ordered the prisons to keep providing the contested care, and an appeals court refused to revive the ban while the case continued. The administration wants the policy back in force now, not after months of further litigation.
In February, the Bureau of Prisons issued a new policy that draws hard lines. It prohibits any surgeries aimed at modifying sex traits. It discontinues hormone treatments for inmates not already on hormone therapy. And it blocks social accommodations that clash with an inmate’s biological sex.
Those blocked items include breast or buttock padding, chest binders, makeup, wigs, and undergarments that do not match biological sex. The lead characterization of the Justice Department’s request is straightforward: stop federal payment for the hormone treatments and the social accommodations.
The policy sits on top of an executive order issued at the start of President Trump’s second term. That order barred the use of federal funds for medical treatments or procedures for transgender inmates. A group of federal inmates sued the Trump administration over the order earlier this year.
In June, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, ordered the Bureau of Prisons to keep providing accommodations and care for transgender inmates in federal prisons. Lamberth said officials had not given a serious explanation for handling medical treatment for gender dysphoria differently from other cases.
The lower court also found that the Bureau of Prisons failed to adequately consider its own past experience providing care aligned with guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, known as WPATH.
The Justice Department rejects that framework. In its Supreme Court filing, the department said WPATH’s care guidelines are scientifically flawed, biased, and unreliable.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declined to revive the policy while proceedings moved forward after the Justice Department appealed. That left the district court’s order in place and pushed the fight to the Supreme Court.
Sauer and the Justice Department argue the courts must grant double deference to federal prison administrators on security and order inside the walls. The petition invokes a long-standing principle about how far judges should go when second-guessing wardens and agency officials.
"Prison administrators... should be accorded wide-ranging deference in the adoption and execution of policies and practices that in their judgment are needed to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security."
The filing presses the same point on administrative law. Sauer wrote that the lower court’s demand for more evidence cannot be squared with core rules that govern agency decisions in this setting.
"The court’s demand for additional evidence cannot be reconciled with bedrock principles of administrative law or the double deference that BOP is due in this context."
In plain terms, the government says prison officials, not a single district judge, get the first call on what keeps facilities safe and orderly when medical claims collide with sex-based rules, housing realities, and limited budgets.
The case turns on more than paperwork. Federal prisons house violent offenders under tight control. The Bureau of Prisons decided to stop funding interventions it calls medically disputed and unproven, while still prioritizing mental-health treatment. A district court ordered those interventions and accommodations back into place. An appeals court left that order standing for now. The Justice Department wants the Supreme Court to clear the path for immediate enforcement.
That sequence matters for accountability. An executive order barred federal money for the treatments and procedures. The Bureau of Prisons wrote implementing rules in February. Inmates sued. A judge ordered continued care and faulted the agency for not leaning harder on WPATH-aligned past practice. The department answered that those guidelines are flawed and biased, and that prison administrators deserve wide room to set discipline and security policy.
None of the reporting names individual plaintiff inmates, full case captions, or absolute calendar dates beyond relative markers such as Monday, February, June, and earlier this month. The core record is still clear: the executive branch set a ban, the lower courts blocked its enforcement path, and the solicitor general is asking the Supreme Court to put the policy back into effect without further delay.
If prison administrators cannot draw lines on hormone drugs, cosmetic accommodations, and sex-trait surgeries without a judge rewriting the rules midstream, taxpayers and front-line staff lose the basic tools of institutional control. The Supreme Court now gets the chance to say whether federal prisons still run the prisons.
