the trump administration asked the supreme court for permission to confiscate wigs from trans prisoners. i need everyone to read that twice.
via the Justice Department's application to the Supreme Court in Trump v. Kingdom, Law Dork and the Washington Blade
Somewhere in the Justice Department on Monday morning, a lawyer typed the words "buttock padding" into a filing addressed to the Supreme Court of the United States, checked it, and sent it.
The application, signed by Solicitor General D. John Sauer and filed Sept. 28, asks the justices to pause a federal judge's order so the Bureau of Prisons can enforce a policy it adopted in February. That policy, as the filing describes it, ends "sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations" for people in federal prison with gender dysphoria, and keeps only mental-health treatment. It says BOP "will remove or confiscate social accommodations," which include, in the filing's own quotation marks, "buttock padding," "breast padding," chest "binders," "makeup," "wigs," and other items "used to alter the person's appearance to align with the person's 'gender identity.'"
what the filing asks for
The government gives two reasons. First, that the old approach "did not reflect the latest scientific information." Second, security: the filing says hormones and accommodations could make people "target[s] for attacks," "breed resentment among other inmates," and that accommodations could help someone "hide contraband." The wig, apparently, is a smuggling risk.
The judge who keeps blocking this is U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, an 83-year-old Reagan appointee. After hearing the evidence in June, he wrote that "gender affirming care is the only effective treatment for gender dysphoria," Law Dork reports, and he renewed his order in August. On Sept. 18, a divided D.C. Circuit panel refused to pause it; the dissenting judge, the filing and Law Dork both note, objected to the renewal procedure rather than defending the policy itself.
who this actually touches
Law Dork, which has covered the case closely, reports that the end goal of the hormone "tapering" is to stop hormone therapy for all of the roughly 600 trans people receiving it in federal prison. Chris Geidner there argues the reasoning is built to travel well beyond prison walls. The ACLU, which represents the plaintiffs, called the policy "a direct threat to the well-being of transgender people in federal custody and an open violation of their fundamental rights," per the Blade.
The Court has asked for a response by 4 p.m. on Oct. 8, Law Dork reports. Until then the injunction stands, the wigs stay on, and nine justices have a filing in the inbox containing the phrase "buttock padding."
