The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift court orders blocking a federal policy that would prohibit transgender people in federal prisons from receiving medication or surgery for gender dysphoria. Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal Monday, Sept. 28, seeking to put the policy into effect while the legal dispute continues. The policy would restrict care to counseling and end what the administration calls “social accommodations.” President Donald Trump directed the change in an executive order signed on his first day back in office in 2025. The order barred the use of federal funds for medical procedures, treatments or drugs intended to align an inmate’s appearance with their gender identity. It also directed that transgender women not be held in women’s prisons. Several transgender prisoners, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center, sued. They argued that the Bureau of Prisons had not provided an adequate basis for reversing policies adopted during the Obama administration. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, blocked the new policy, finding that it appeared to violate federal law because it was arbitrary and capricious. He said the bureau seemed to have disregarded the results of its earlier policy review and shaped its analysis to match Trump’s directive rather than fairly weigh the evidence. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled 2-1 earlier this month against the administration’s effort to pause Lamberth’s orders. The orders have kept the policy from taking effect for more than a year. In the Supreme Court filing, Sauer argued that the prison bureau independently relied on what it viewed as a lack of scientific support for the treatments, and said alignment with the president’s order was not a reason to block the change. He accused the district court of improperly second-guessing the agency’s assessment of medical and scientific evidence. Attorneys for the prisoners said they would oppose the administration’s request. They argued that withholding medically necessary gender-affirming care from people in custody threatens their well-being and violates their constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the administration’s request. The case puts the care of transgender people in federal custody at the center of a dispute over the limits of presidential directives, agency decision-making and prisoners’ constitutional rights.