by WorldTribune Staff, October 25, 2026 — Real World News
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump Administration from enforcing a policy that would cut off taxpayer-funded gender-transition care and surgeries for federal prisoners.
The vote was 7-2 with only conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissenting.
The high court issued a brief, unsigned order denying an emergency application from the Trump Administration.
The ruling leaves in place a lower-court injunction from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that keeps the administration’s policy from taking effect.
Following executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aimed at restricting gender-transition services in federal custody, the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) attempted to block surgeries, hormone therapy, and social accommodations (such as wigs or makeup) for inmates who say they’re trans.
The BOP adopted a policy in February of this year that stated it will not provide sex change drugs to inmates or provide “social accommodations,” such as make-up, ladies lingerie, or other items. It said that inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria who have never taken hormones before will not be able to start them while in prison, and those who came to prison taking them would be placed on a tapering plan.
The bureau said that inmates receiving social accommodations would no longer get them from the prison, and no new social accommodations would be provided. Social accommodations are items that are used to “alter the person’s appearance to align with the person’s ‘gender identity,’” the policy states. Such items include buttock padding, breast padding, binders, undergarments, makeup, and wigs.
The Supreme Court’s action means those treatments and services must continue for now with taxpayers footing the bill.
As of February 2025, there were 2,198 trans-identified inmates being held in federal prisons, the BOP said.
