Kingdom v. Trump
In March 2025, Transgender Law Center, the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project, the ACLU National Prison Project, and the ACLU of DC filed Kingdom v. Trump, a class action lawsuit against the Trump Administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) challenging an Executive Order and new BOP policies prohibiting access to gender-affirming care for the more than 2000 transgender people in federal prisons.
On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order (EO) attacking transgender people and ordering federal government agencies to strip transgender people of any official acknowledgement and acceptance. This EO specifically targeted incarcerated transgender people, prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in federal prisons and immigration detention centers, safer housing options, and any acknowledgement of their identity. Following the EO, the BOP instructed federal prisons to cease vital medical treatments like hormone replacement therapy previously prescribed by BOP medical providers, prohibit the provision of gender-affirming clothing and commissary items for transgender people, and require BOP staff to misgender transgender people with incorrect pronouns and titles. The EO also instructed officials to remove the fewer-than-20 transgender women held in women’s federal prisons and place them in men’s prisons, an issue under challenge in multiple separate lawsuits.
We filed Kingdom v. Trump to fight this denial of health care and attack on the dignity of trans people. The named plaintiffs are two trans men and one trans woman serving sentences in facilities in New Jersey, Minnesota, and Florida. All three were diagnosed with gender dysphoria by BOP medical providers and prescribed hormone therapy by health care staff, but have either had their treatments suspended or were told they will be suspended soon. Our case argues this policy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments,” which federal courts have long held includes the denial of medically necessary health care, including access to gender-affirming care. We also argue that the policy violates the equal protection requirement of the Fifth Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.