by Ben Whedon
The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to lift a stay on the Trump administration’s efforts to ban gender-related treatments for inmates.
But the court’s order is not a ruling on the merits and merely leaves in place a stay from the lower court, CBS News reported. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the policy in June.
The Supreme Court previously upheld the administration’s restrictions on transgender participation in the military and recently found that states could limit access to student sports by biological sex.
Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the order.
In reaction to the ruling, Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said, “Today, trans people in federal prisons can keep getting the care they need. Denying access to critical medical care for incarcerated people simply because they are trans is discriminatory, cruel and flies in the face of our Eighth Amendment protections.”
“Trump and MAGA extremists are obsessed with targeting our community and undermining access to essential healthcare, defying the recommendations of every major medical association in the country. This decision protects incarcerated trans people from the administration’s attempt to steamroll over constitutional rights for now, but the fight to uphold the dignity and respect our community deserves is far from over,” Robinson added.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News. Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network and contributed to this story.
