The emergency appeal comes after lower courts blocked officials from immediately carrying out the policy adopted after an executive order from President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the government to continue providing gender-manipulation procedures.
The Trump administration argues that the policy was properly adopted and the judge overstepped. It halts surgeries, hormones and social accommodations like wigs while allowing mental health therapy to continue.
It was adopted after an executive order required the Bureau of Prisons to revise its medical care policies so that federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex."
The government asked the high court to freeze Lamberth's order while the lawsuit continues to play out, saying the Bureau of Prisons had “determined that sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions in general, and social accommodations could no longer be justified as treatment for gender dysphoria.”
