Supreme Court Denies Stay Bid, Leaving Injunction Against Federal Prison Transgender-Care Policy in Place
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on October 21 denied the Trump administration's emergency application for a stay in Trump v. Kingdom, No. 26A416, leaving in place a lower-court injunction that blocks the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) from carrying out its 2026 policy ending hormone therapy, gender-affirming surgeries, and social accommodations for transgender inmates. The Court's order gave no reasoning. According to the docket, Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito would have granted the government's application.
The BOP policy, adopted this year following President Trump's executive order, provides gender dysphoria care through mental-health treatment only: it bars hormone interventions and surgeries and withdraws social accommodations such as makeup and wigs. Three transgender inmates, led by Alishea Sophia Kingdom, sued in a class action to block it. According to the Associated Press, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union said the class covers about 1,000 inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria, roughly 800 of them prescribed hormone therapy, out of more than 2,000 transgender people in federal custody.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington blocked the policy on August 26, 2026, holding it unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to stay that injunction on September 18. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed the emergency application with the Supreme Court on September 28.
Wednesday's denial decides only whether the policy may take effect while the case proceeds; the underlying challenge to the policy's legality remains pending in the lower courts.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于华盛顿的美国最高法院大楼（资料图）。照片：Jarek Tuszyński，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (file photo). Photo: Jarek Tuszyński, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
