WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to let the Trump administration enforce a Bureau of Prisons policy that would have stripped gender-affirming medical care from transgender federal inmates, leaving a lower court's injunction in place while the underlying lawsuit plays out.

In a one-line, unsigned order, the justices rejected an emergency application from the Justice Department asking the Court to freeze a district court ruling and let the new policy take effect immediately. The order gave no explanation, as is typical for emergency-docket rulings, and it does not resolve the broader legal challenge to the administration's policy, which continues in lower courts. Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas noted dissents, indicating they would have let the policy take effect — a 7-2 split.

The policy at issue, first announced by the Bureau of Prisons in February, would have halted gender-affirming surgeries for transgender inmates, tapered off hormone therapy and ended accommodations such as access to gender-affirming clothing, makeup and wigs. Mental health services would have continued under the policy. The Bureau of Prisons currently holds roughly 1,000 transgender inmates.

THE COURT GAVE NO EXPLANATION FOR THE 7-2 ORDER — AS IS TYPICAL ON THE EMERGENCY DOCKET.

A Policy Blocked Twice Already

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth blocked the Bureau of Prisons from enforcing the policy back in June, finding the administration had likely violated federal law in how it rolled out the changes. The Justice Department appealed, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit split 2-1 against the administration, rejecting its bid to pause Lamberth's order while the case proceeded. That left the Justice Department with one option: an emergency appeal straight to the Supreme Court, which the justices rejected Wednesday without comment.

The administration's policy was part of a broader set of directives reversing Biden-era protections for transgender federal inmates, and it has drawn legal challenges from civil rights groups who argued the changes amounted to deliberate indifference to inmates' medical needs — a standard courts have long used to evaluate prison healthcare under the Eighth Amendment. Advocacy groups cheered Wednesday's order as a sign the courts would continue scrutinizing the policy closely even as the case heads toward a fuller merits review.

What's Next

Wednesday's order is procedural, not a final ruling on the merits of the Bureau of Prisons' authority to set the policy in the first place. The underlying case continues before Judge Lamberth, and the Justice Department is expected to keep pressing its position as the litigation moves forward. Given the D.C. Circuit's 2-1 split, legal observers say an eventual full merits ruling from the appeals court — and a possible second trip to the Supreme Court — remains likely before the policy's fate is finally settled.