FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 3, 2025
CONTACT
K Richardson, Communications Manager, [email protected]
WASHINGTON – A federal district court judge has granted a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of a Trump Administration executive order prohibiting federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) officials from providing gender-affirming hormone therapy and accommodations to transgender people. The injunction does not require BOP to provide gender-affirming surgical care.
The court also granted the plaintiff’s motion for a class certification and extended injunctive relief to the full class, which encompasses all persons who are or will be incarcerated in BOP facilities and have a current medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria or who receive that diagnosis in the future.
“This is a critical ruling for our clients and all transgender people in Bureau of Prisons custody,” said Corene Kendrick, Deputy Director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “This administration’s cruelty towards transgender people disregards their rights under the Constitution. The denial of medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care, to people in prison is a violation of their fundamental constitutional rights. We will continue to advocate for the rights of all incarcerated people.”
“Today’s ruling is made possible by the courageous plaintiffs who fought to protect their rights and the rights of transgender people everywhere,” said Shawn Thomas Meerkamper, Managing Attorney at Transgender Law Center. “This administration’s continued targeting of transgender people is cruel and threatens the lives of all people. No person—incarcerated or not, transgender or not—should have their rights to medically-necessary care denied. We are grateful the court understood that our clients deserve basic dignity and healthcare, and we will continue to fight alongside them.”
“Today’s ruling is an important lifeline for trans people in federal custody,” said Michael Perloff, Senior Staff Attorney at ACLU-D.C. “The ruling is also a critical reminder to the Trump administration that trans people, like all people, have constitutional rights that don’t simply disappear because the president has decided to wage an ideological battle.”
Following a January 20 executive order from President Trump that prohibited gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prisons, the BOP issued a policy stating that “no Bureau of Prisons funds are to be expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” It also prohibits clothing and commissary items it deems inconsistent with a person’s assigned sex, and requires all BOP staff to misgender transgender people.
In March, two transgender men and one transgender woman serving sentences in facilities in New Jersey, Minnesota, and Florida filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump Administration and BOP, challenging the Executive Order and new BOP policies prohibiting their access to gender-affirming care. The class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of approximately 2,000 transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons across the United States.
All three plaintiffs were diagnosed with gender dysphoria by BOP medical providers and prescribed hormone therapy by health care staff, but either had their treatments suspended or were told they would be suspended soon. The filing argues this policy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishment,” which federal courts have long held includes the denial of medically necessary health care, including access to gender-affirming care.
It also argues that the policy violates the equal protection requirement of the 5th Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. The case was filed on behalf of the three plaintiffs and all other transgender people in federal prisons by the ACLU, the ACLU of DC, and Transgender Law Center.
BOP also instructed officials to remove any transgender women held in women’s facilities and place them in men’s facilities, an issue under challenge in multiple separate lawsuits.
More information on this case can be found here.
Today’s order from the court can be found here.
###