The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court Monday to lift a lower court’s order barring a new regulation for federal prisons, which would stop providing inmates with transgender surgeries and procedures.
The Department of Justice filed an emergency petition to the justices after a federal district court blocked a February 2026 policy from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which ended transgender surgeries as part of treatment for inmates suffering from gender dysphoria, while keeping mental health treatment options available. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued the high court should halt the lower court’s block, saying the policy was lawfully enacted under the BOP’s rulemaking authority.
Sauer explained that the BOP decided to change its policy based on both “the latest scientific information” and “security and prison-administration concerns that outweighed whatever limited benefits they had.”
“Without meaningfully engaging with either BOP’s reasoning or the administrative record, the district court prohibited BOP from applying its 2026 policy to any inmate who is or will be diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” Sauer wrote, noting that the lower court had “radically” departed “from the significant deference that BOP is due” in its policymaking.
Sauer urged the Supreme Court to allow the Trump administration to enact the February 2026 policy while litigation continues, stressing the importance of allowing the federal government to advance its policies and priorities.
“In nullifying BOP’s exercise of its statutorily conferred authority to adopt a policy that prison administrators have determined is necessary to maintain institutional security, the court’s order causes irreparable harm to the government and to the public,” Sauer said in the petition filed with the high court. “Indeed, this Court has emphasized the importance of allowing politically accountable officials to make decisions about the permissible forms of treatment for gender dysphoria, and the need for such policymaking ‘flexibility’ is even greater in the context of prison administration.”
The Supreme Court has not set a timeline for when it will rule on this emergency request from the DOJ.
The Trump administration has had several legal challenges to its policies aimed at curbing transgender surgeries and similar efforts implemented under previous administrations. One of the policies which has been an ongoing legal battle for the Trump administration is over its policy restricting the gender on a person’s passport to his or her biological sex.
The Supreme Court allowed the policy to go into effect pending litigation last year, but now must decide whether to take up the case for full arguments after the Trump administration suffered losses in both federal district and appeals courts. The high court could decide on whether to take up the case as soon as later this fall.