On September 28, 2026, Solicitor General D. John Sauer asked the Supreme Court to let the Bureau of Prisons enforce a policy ending gender-affirming medical care in federal prisons while a class-action lawsuit continues. The case is Trump v. Kingdom, brought by the ACLU on behalf of transgender people in federal custody.
The policy, issued in February 2026, provides mental-health treatment only: no sex-trait-modification surgeries, no hormones for anyone not already receiving them, and a “tapering plan” for people who are. It also ends social accommodations such as binders and wigs. A federal district court in Washington, under Judge Royce Lamberth, stayed and enjoined the policy in June, finding it likely arbitrary and capricious, and reissued the injunction in August. A divided D.C. Circuit panel refused to pause it on September 18, finding the Bureau of Prisons had not “adequately” considered “its own experience providing gender affirming care under its prior policy.”
The government's application argues that “BOP's decision to prioritize mental-health treatment, while discontinuing medically disputed and unproven sex-rejecting interventions, falls well within the bounds of reasoned decisionmaking.” It says the policy was adopted independently of Trump's January 2025 executive order on gender, which directed federal prisons to stop such care. Responses are due to Chief Justice Roberts by October 8. How many people the policy would affect is not stated in the filing or the coverage so far. It is a separate case from the one blocking the transfer of transgender women to men's prisons (see A Federal Judge Again Blocks the Administration From Moving Transgender Women to Men's Prisons After Plaintiffs Describe Rapes in Male Facilities).
Update (October 22, 2026): on October 21 the Supreme Court denied the stay: “The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is denied. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the application for stay.” The one-line order gives no reasoning, and no other justice noted a dissent. Judge Lamberth's injunction stays in place while the case continues; the ACLU says it covers about 1,000 inmates, roughly 800 of them on hormone therapy, NPR reported. This is not a ruling on the merits.