U.S.A.: Judge says prisons must provide gender-affirming care for inmates

On Tuesday, a U.S.A. judge ruled that the U.S.A. Bureau of Prisons must continue to provide gender-affirming care to trans inmates, despite an executive order from President Donald Trump on his first day back in office to cease funding for such care.

U.S.A. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., granted permission for a group of over 2,000 trans inmates in federal prisons to file a class action lawsuit challenging the order. He mandated that the Bureau of Prisons supply hormone therapy and accommodations like clothing and hair removal devices while the lawsuit proceeds. The ruling does not obligate the bureau to provide surgical care associated with gender transitions, according to ‘Reuters’.

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields commented that the Trump administration anticipates eventually prevailing in the legal battle. “The District Court's decision allowing transgender women, aka MEN, in women's prisons fundamentally makes women less safe and ignores the biological truth that there are only two genders,” Fields expressed in an email.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing the inmates, stated that the ruling serves 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.”

According to the U.S.A. Department of Justice, approximately 2,230 trans inmates are housed in federal custodial facilities and halfway houses, with about two-thirds, or 1,506, being trans women, most of whom are in men’s prisons.

The named plaintiffs, two trans men and one trans woman, initiated a lawsuit against the Trump administration in March, challenging Trump’s executive order from January 20 that aimed to combat “gender ideology extremism.”

This executive order instructed the federal government to recognise only two biologically distinct sexes, male and female, and to place trans women in men’s prisons. It also directed the bureau to refrain from spending any money on “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

Judge Lamberth, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan, stated that based on Tuesday’s ruling, the plaintiffs have a strong likelihood of succeeding in their lawsuit because the bureau did not conduct any analysis before halting treatment that its medical staff had previously classified as medically appropriate for inmates.

He also noted that even if a thorough study had been conducted before deciding to stop gender-affirming care, the decision might still breach the U.S.A. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment protections against “cruel and unusual” punishment.

The Department of Justice had contended that the judge should respect the policy decision of a democratically elected president. However, Lamberth emphasised that a functioning democracy requires adherence to “all duly enacted laws,” which includes preventing the executive branch from acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.

Lamberth wrote that democratic self-governance “does not mean blind submission to the whims of the most recent election-victor.”

The executive order claimed to promote the “dignity, safety, and wellbeing of women” and aimed to halt the spread of “gender ideology” which denies “the immutable biological reality of sex.” However, Lamberth observed that the inmates undergoing hormone treatments were not particularly focused on promoting any ideology; they were simply taking “measures to lessen the personal anguish caused by their gender dysphoria.”