Because of a federal judge’s ruling, you will be on the hook for providing “gender-affirming care” to incarcerated trans-identified individuals serving time in prison.
US District Judge Royce Lambert on Tuesday ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons must continue providing trans-identified inmates with “gender-affirming care,” counteracting one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders to halt funding for these treatments.
From NBC News:
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., allowed a group of more than 2,000 transgender inmates in federal prisons to pursue a lawsuit challenging the order as a class action. He ordered the Bureau of Prisons to provide them with hormone therapy and accommodations such as clothing and hair-removal devices while the lawsuit plays out.
The ruling does not require the bureau to provide surgical care related to gender transitions.
However, this is not the end of the story. White House spokesperson Harrison Fields told NBC News that the court’s ruling “fundamentally makes women less safe and ignores the biological truth that there are only two genders.” He indicated that the administration will appeal the ruling.
This ruling wont make it past the court of appeals:
— Juan Mattos 𝕏 (@Juan_Mattos_X) June 4, 2025
As per 8th Amendment in the US Constitution and previous Supreme Court, Gender Affirming Care is a VOLUNTARY CHOICE not a medical necessity; no prison will provide any help past Hormonal Treatment (That is already too much).… pic.twitter.com/B02Sa5GwtO
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which has launched numerous lawsuits against the Trump administration, celebrated the ruling as “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.”
Lamberth, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, said in Tuesday’s ruling that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their lawsuit because the bureau did not perform any analysis before cutting off treatment that its own medical staff had previously deemed to be medically appropriate for the inmates.
Even if it had extensively studied the issue before deciding to stop gender-affirming care, the decision might still violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment’s protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment, Lamberth wrote.
The Department of Justice had argued that the judge should defer to the policy decision of a democratically elected president, but Lamberth said a functioning democracy requires respect for “all duly enacted laws,” including those that blocked the executive branch from acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.
Democratic self-governance “does not mean blind submission to the whims of the most recent election-victor,” Lamberth wrote.
This development comes as another federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the State of Idaho’s enforcement of a law that would prohibit state-funded “gender-affirming care” for prison inmates.
This is yet another example of leftists using lawfare to impede the president’s agenda. It seems likely that the White House will prevail in the end — but until that happens, taxpayer funds will continue to be used to affirm progressive gender ideology in federal prisons.