Federal Prisons Must Provide Gender-Affirming Care To Trans Inmates, Judge Rules
Judge Lamberth blocked Trump’s executive order, ruling in favor of trans inmates.
A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) must provide transgender inmates with gender-affirming care and social accommodations such as clothing and hair removal devices, pausing the effects of a Trump executive order.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed District Court judge, ruled that the enforcement of the executive order to deny gender-affirming care was not based on any “reasoned” explanation or analysis.
Judge Lamberth wrote that under the Administrative Procedure Act, the BOP “may not arbitrarily deprive inmates of medications or other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff have deemed to be medically appropriate without considering the implications of that decision.”
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Trump’s executive order requires that the BOP cease providing “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The judge wrote that neither the BOP nor the Executive Order provides any “serious explanation” as to why gender-affirming care should be “handled any differently than any other mental health intervention,” citing that untreated gender dysphoria can cause significant distress, including depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality.”
Because of the ruling, the executive order will be paused while the lawsuit over the issue continues. The three plaintiffs in the case are three trans inmates who were denied hormone therapy and undergarments that corresponded with their gender identity under the new policy.
The judge made it clear that the preliminary ruling will not engage in debates about the effectiveness of hormone therapies and instead is responding only to the BOP’s failure to meet the Administrative Procedure Act’s rules regarding medical treatment of inmates.
