CNN
—
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to continue providing gender-affirming medication for transgender inmates in federal prisons, dealing the latest blow to a multipronged effort by the president to pull back federal support for transgender health care.
“All parties seem to agree that the named plaintiffs do, in fact, need hormone therapy,” US District Judge Royce Lamberth wrote.
The preliminary injunction from Lamberth means that officials within the Bureau of Prisons cannot enforce guidance the agency’s leadership issued earlier this year implementing President Donald Trump’s order, which directed the agency to revise its policies to “ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
Lamberth, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan, said a group of transgender inmates who had been medically diagnosed with gender dysphoria and who challenged BOP’s guidance implementing the president’s order were likely to succeed on their claim that the agency violated federal rulemaking procedures. They will continue to receive drugs as prescribed, the judge said.
“Nothing in the thin record before the Court suggests that either the BOP or the President consciously took stock of—much less studied—the potentially debilitating effects that the new policies could have on transgender inmates before the implementing memoranda came into force,” Lamberth wrote in the 36-page ruling.
“The BOP may not arbitrarily deprive inmates of medications or other lifestyle accommodations that its own medical staff have deemed to be medically appropriate without considering he implications of that decision.”
Though the case was originally brought by three transgender inmates, Lamberth agreed to certify a class that consists of all federal inmates who are taking hormone therapy medication to treat their diagnosis of gender dysphoria, defined as the psychological distress an individual feels when their gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth. Not every transgender individual has gender dysphoria.
There are about 1,000 people in federal custody who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Lamberth noted that the BOP was continuing to give more than 600 inmates their prescribed hormone therapy medications, despite Trump’s prior order.
The Justice Department had tried to explain how the BOP was acting differently than the order said they should, Lamberth noted. A federal government lawyer at a recent hearing “argued that the BOP’s policy is to provide hormone therapy to inmates as necessary to address medical needs other than ‘conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,’ such as to ameliorate anxiety, depression, or suicidality associated with gender dysphoria. Therefore, they argue, the BOP has the authority to provide not just some relief, but the very relief that the plaintiffs sought in their Complaint—to wit, restoration of their hormone therapy.”
The case so far has highlighted the changing reality transgender inmates in federal prisons have faced since Trump took office in January.
Three inmates — Alishea Kingdom, Solo Nichols and Jas Kapule — sued because they had been receiving hormone therapy where they were held and also had gained access to some supplies, such as underwear and cosmetics, that would enable them to accommodate their genders.
Kingdom is a transgender woman and was able to access feminine underwear and commissary items in addition to her hormone therapy medication, while Nichols and Kapule were able to have men’s boxers and chest binders.
The BOP stopped Kingdom’s hormone therapy in February, causing her anxiety, hopelessness, panic attacks and suicidal thoughts, she told the court.
But once she and the others filed the lawsuit, her hormone therapy was restored, Lamberth noted.
Nichols similarly had his testosterone injections reduced in February, until the BOP reversed course and restored the full dosage by the end of that month, court filings say.
Kapule never lost access to hormone therapy, according to the court records.
The judge in the case decided the three inmates would suffer irreparable harm if he didn’t step in with this ruling, according to his opinion.
The BOP declined to comment, saying it does not make statements on pending litigation.
This story has been updated with additional details.
