Federal Prison Policy Rescinding Trans Inmate Care Blocked Again

The Trump administration must continue providing transgender prison inmates gender-affirming care, a federal judge said.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia blocking the Bureau of Prison’s February guidance that he said would impose a “near total ban on gender-affirming care.” The order came hours after a federal appeals court stayed Lamberth’s earlier injunction, which barred the agency from implementing a 2025 policy pursuant to an executive order prohibiting the use of federal funds for gender-affirming treatments. That policy became defunct after the administration issued the updated guidance in February.

• The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on Wednesday stayed Lamberth’s May order extending his injunction from last year to include the new guidance, finding he appeared to rely on “amorphous considerations” rather than standard preliminary injunction factors
• Lamberth said Wednesday that the updated policy is arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act because the government “cites zero evidence” from its medical professional to support its conclusions that gender dysphoria care isn’t medically necessary and unproven
• The policy is also objectively unreasonable, Lamberth said, given the evidence before the agency suggesting that denying gender-affirming care when medically necessary can negatively impact mental health

The American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of the District of Columbia and the Transgender Law Center represent the plaintiffs.

The case is Kingdom v. Trump, D.D.C., No. 1:25-cv-00691, 6/17/26.