A federal judge dealt another loss to President Donald Trump by knocking down his executive order on transgender inmates.
U.S. District judge Royce Lamberth ruled Tuesday that the federal Bureau of Prisons must continue providing hormone therapy and social accommodations to trans inmates after Trump's executive order disrupted their medical treatment.
“In light of the plaintiffs’ largely personal motives for undergoing gender-affirming care, 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.
The Ronald Reagan-appointed judge said the inmates who challenged Trump's order were trying to personal anguish caused by their gender dysphoria and granted their preliminary injunction.
"Just as the plaintiffs’ harms are either manifest already or imminent and likely, so too are they severe," the judge wrote. "As recounted above, Dr. [Dan] Karasic’s declaration explains that gender dysphoria can produce severe side effects ranging from depression and anxiety to suicidal ideation and self-harm if inadequately treated," the judge wrote. "The BOP does not dispute this medical reality, and indeed the declaration of Chris Bina, Assistant Director of the BOP’s Health Services Division, seems to confirm as much when it states that the three named plaintiffs are currently 'receiving medically necessary care,' referring to their restored hormone therapy regimens."
Trump's executive order required BOP to revise its medical policies to prohibit federal funds to be spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
Lamberth had in February blocked prison officials from transferring three transgender women inmates to men's facilities under another directive in Trump's executive order.