Federal judge rules against Trump order halting sex change procedures in prisons

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to continue to provide accommodations and care for transgender inmates in federal prisons, saying officials had not provided a serious explanation for why medical treatment for gender dysphoria should be handled differently than other cases. 

The order Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, blocks officials from carrying out President Donald Trump’s executive order, which required Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) officials to stop providing medical procedures related to sex changes. 

“Neither the BOP nor the Executive Order provides any serious explanation as to why the treatment modalities covered by the Executive Order or implementing memoranda should be handled differently than any other mental health intervention,” Lamberth wrote in a 36-page opinion. 

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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to continue to provide care and accommodations for hundreds of transgender inmates in federal prisons. (Getty Images)

The judge granted an injunction requested by three transgender inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria to block the implementation of Trump’s executive order. Lamberth ruled the plaintiffs’ merits are likely to succeed under the Administrative Procedure Act. 

“The import of the opinion is essentially this: Under the APA, 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 the implications of that decision,” Lamberth wrote.

Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House. A BOP spokesperson told Fox News Digital the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings.

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Trump’s order mandated the BOP stop providing “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

Prior to Trump‘s reversal of BOP gender dysphoria policies, the BOP began funding transgender surgical procedures for transgender inmates in December 2022, with Donna Langan, formerly known as Peter Kevin Langan, becoming the first federal prisoner to undergo taxpayer-funded gender surgery. 

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to continue to provide accommodations and care for transgender inmates in federal prisons. (iStock)

Langan was convicted in 1997 for involvement in a series of armed bank robberies across the Midwest during the 1990s. Langan was a leader of the Aryan Republican Army, a White supremacist group that carried out these robberies to fund their activities, according to court documents.

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Tuesday’s ruling comes as judges continue to block parts of Trump’s agenda.