Order stalls Trump’s ban on hormones for federal inmates

The federal Bureau of Prisons must continue providing hormone therapy and other accommodations to inmates suffering from gender dysphoria, according to a federal court order issued Tuesday. The order temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s executive order to stop all federal support for gender ideology in federal prisons, including transgender procedures.

What was the reasoning behind Trump’s executive order? The order’s stated aim was to defend women from what it characterized as gender ideology extremism and to restore objective biological truth to the federal government. Specifically, the order stated that it would protect women’s private spaces by ensuring that men would not be housed in women’s prisons or detention centers. It also said federal dollars should not be used to subsidize medical procedures, treatment, or drugs meant to make an inmate appear as though he or she is a member of the opposite sex.

Why all the controversy? The American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center sued the administration on behalf of prisoners impacted by the policy change within the federal Bureau of Prisons. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s Tuesday ruling sided with LGBT advocates and required the federal prison system to continue providing pro-LGBT medical procedures to inmates for the time being.

What was Lamberth’s rationale? The Reagan administration nominee described Trump’s order as sudden and without sufficient analysis. The Trump administration hasn’t given an actual explanation for why procedures to treat gender dysphoria should be handled differently than any other mental illness intervention, according to Lamberth. The judge alleged that the injunction was necessary to ensure that plaintiff Alishea Kingdom could access hormone shots regardless of progress in the litigation. The judge noted that prison officials repeatedly denied Kingdom’s requests for hormone shots after Trump’s order. Officials only approved the prisoner’s requests after the lawsuit was filed, raising concerns that prison officials will go back to denying the hormone requests once the case is finished, Lamberth wrote.

Lamberth issued a similar ruling in February, barring prison officials from requiring that inmates with gender dysphoria be housed with other members of their sex. The administration did not consider the possible harm those transgender inmates could suffer from being housed with inmates who conflicted with their self-proclaimed gender identity, according to that order.

Dig deeper: Read Elizabeth Russell’s report on the state of Maine losing federal funding for housing a man in a women’s prison.