EXCLUSIVE — One of the Trump administration’s latest initiatives is projected to save taxpayers over $1.65 million, which previously would’ve been spent on gender-affirming care for federal prisoners who identify as transgender.
Under the new prison policy, issued on Feb. 19, the U.S. government will no longer pay for the medical modification of transgender-identifying inmates imprisoned in federal facilities.
Wardens were previously required to provide, as well as cover the cost of, hormonal drugs and medically unnecessary procedures to prisoners who sought to physically alter themselves to appear as the opposite sex.
The Biden-era transgender affirmation practices had cost the Federal Bureau of Prisons approximately $1.65 million in taxpayer dollars, according to Justice Department figures shared with the Washington Examiner.
BOP spent around $1.25 million of those funds on hormone-replacement therapy, which included $130,000 worth of testosterone suppressants, estrogen injections, and such to convicts at halfway houses or on home confinement.
Two surgical operations, costing a total of $400,000, were performed in accordance with the past directive following lengthy legal battles over in-prison access to breast implants, facial feminization surgery, and genital augmentation.
In 2022, an infamous white supremacist who identifies as a woman was the first federal prisoner to undergo reconstructive surgery, namely vaginoplasty, the construction of a pseudo-vagina out of inverted penile tissue.
Peter Kevin Langan, now known as “Donna,” is the former ringleader of the Aryan Republican Army, a terrorist neo-Nazi gang suspected of financing the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by funneling funds stolen from a string of armed bank robberies.
Langan presently is serving a life sentence, post-operation, at a special needs women’s prison in Texas.
The newly issued BOP policy is expected to generate at least $1.6 million in potential savings from surgeries alone, based on estimates from eight existing surgical requests.
As for hormone therapy, related expense reductions will be quantifiable as savings are realized, a DOJ official told the Washington Examiner.
“The new policy will result in almost $2 million not being spent on otherwise harmful treatment that also results in safety concerns at BOP facilities,” the DOJ official said.
In 2022, former President Joe Biden’s BOP reinstated the Transgender Offender Manual, which was originally released by the Obama-Biden administration in January 2017, but that version had only made hormone medication accessible at the time.
President Donald Trump’s BOP repealed much of the manual’s provisions in 2018, but BOP officials reissued the handbook when Biden took office and updated it to include surgical consideration.
Per the recently revised Trump BOP guidelines, titled “Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria,” prison health services will instead prescribe anti-depressants and psychotherapy to address underlying feelings of bodily discomfort and any co-morbid mental health disorders. A diagnosis of gender dysphoria, a perceived incongruence of one’s sense of sex, is often accompanied by other psychiatric conditions.
The recommended treatment intends to alleviate psychological distress in those clinically diagnosed with gender dysphoria through therapeutic remedies, rather than resorting to physical intervention.
For inmates already on a hormone-replacement regimen, BOP will consider placing them on a taper plan that gradually reduces their dosage at a safe withdrawal pace. Tapering will be reevaluated regularly and adjusted accordingly based on monitoring.
The policy also cuts off taxpayer-funded access to nonmedical accommodations, such as breast padding, chest binders, crouch packers, female undergarments, makeup, and wigs, provided for free as part of an inmate’s “social transitioning” process.
Prison staff shall confiscate all free-of-charge social accommodations currently in use. Similar items, such as cosmetics and general gender-specific clothing, however, are still available for purchase on the commissary shopping list.
The policy is not fully in effect either. Pending the resolution of Kingdom v. Trump, a federal lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against BOP, officials must comply with a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the enforcement of Trump’s executive order on “Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
Trump had instructed, by presidential decree, the bureau to ensure that “no federal funds are expended” for the purpose of conforming a prisoner’s outward appearance to that of their desired sex.
Notably, the injunctive relief, though extended classwide in the Kingdom case, does not require BOP to provide “gender-affirming surgeries.”
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LGBT activists have already equated the policy to an act of genocide.
“People will die,” an advocate told The Marshall Project. “People will die by suicide. People will die or be severely hurt from castration attempts.”
California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) claimed that the policy is part of “Trump’s genocidal campaign against trans people.”
“Cruelty is the point,” Wiener wrote in an X post responding to the policy’s unveiling.
In a statement, the DOJ pushed back against claims characterizing the policy as “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“BOP’s new policy is not cruel,” a DOJ official told the Washington Examiner. “Rather, the policy carefully details how each inmate will receive individualized assessments to ensure the best treatment for their diagnosis.”
The official added, “Where the previous Administration’s policy required a one-size-fits-all approach to inmates with gender dysphoria, this policy considers that drastic treatment, like sex trait modification surgeries, are harmful to inmates.”
According to the DOJ official, savings attributable to the policy change will allow BOP to shift funds toward medically necessary treatments for incarcerated individuals.
