Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Enforce Transgender Inmate Treatment Restrictions

The U.S. Supreme Court on October 21 denied the Trump administration's emergency request to suspend an injunction blocking federal prison treatment restrictions for transgender inmates. The order leaves the lower-court protections in place while litigation continues and does not decide the case's merits. According to the inmates' lawyers, the challenged Bureau of Prisons policy bars hormone therapy and social accommodations for gender dysphoria. A federal judge in Washington issued the preliminary injunction on June 17, and the appeals court declined to suspend it. The Supreme Court gave no reasoning; Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would have granted the administration's request.