The Supreme Court may be about to make America’s prisons much crueler

Update, October 21, 11:45 am ET: The Supreme Court released a brief order on October 21, which ruled against the Trump administration’s request to deny gender-affirming care to transgender prisoners. The order is two sentences long. It is temporary. And it does not explain the Court’s reasoning. So it is not clear why the Court ruled against Trump or even whether Trump will lose if this case reaches the Court again after it has be fully litigated in lower courts. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. The article below was originally published on October 13. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to “ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.” Issued alongside a record 26 other orders that day, it was an unsurprising development, because Trump had made this issue one of the centerpieces of his 2024 campaign. The fate of that executive order, as well as the US Bureau of Prisons’ (“BOP”) memoranda implementing the order, is now before the Supreme Court in a case called...