DOJ Moves to Reinstate Cruel Policy Denying Essential Care to Transgender Inmates
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The Justice Department has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn a district court order that protected transgender prisoners from a Bureau of Prisons policy restricting their access to vital medical treatments and accommodations.
On Monday, the Justice Department shamefully filed an emergency appeal, urging the Supreme Court to revive a Bureau of Prisons policy that strips away critical medical procedures and social accommodations from incarcerated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria. This move comes after a federal district court last month rightly blocked the inhumane policy, ensuring that transgender prisoners would continue to receive the medical care they desperately need.
The February policy, which cynically allows only mental-health services while cruelly banning surgeries, hormone therapy, and even basic items like chest binders, wigs, or breast padding, is a blatant attack on the dignity and well-being of transgender inmates. The Bureau of Prisons attempted to distance this policy from President Trump's previous executive order, which also targeted transgender people by prohibiting federal funding for their healthcare.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth saw through this thinly veiled discrimination, denouncing the rules as 'reverse engineered' to enforce the executive order and ordering the Bureau to continue providing the necessary medical care. Yet the DOJ, prioritizing institutional convenience over human rights, argued to the Supreme Court that the district court’s decision 'prevents the application of the Executive’s chosen policy on a broad basis.' Bureau of Prisons Solicitor General D. John Sauer even claimed the policy was 'necessary to maintain institutional security,' disregarding the real harm inflicted on transgender individuals.