#jared littman

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

On Wednesday morning, the Justice Department went to court to advance an argument that, if accepted, would all but erase the existence of transgender people in the law. The request before the court from several transgender people in federal prison is for an order to block the Trump administration’s policy to move trans women to men’s facilities and “taper” all trans people’s hormone treatment — with an admitted goal of ending its provision to trans people in prison altogether. The argument has not gotten as much attention as other cases, dealing as it does with trans people in prison. According to the plaintiffs’ lawyers, there are roughly 1,000 trans people in federal prison, so this is a significant population being affected in and of itself. Barely beneath the surface, however, was a much more broad and consequential argument from DOJ — moving beyond even DOJ’s growing attack on care for trans minors. “The pendulum has swung,” DOJ’s Jared Littman told U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth of what he characterized as a growing opposition to the provision of gender-affirming medical care for trans people of all ages.

Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, was skeptical of Littman’s arguments. He has repeatedly issued temporary restraining orders and then preliminary injunctions blocking the Trump administration’s anti-trans efforts in federal prisons (including holding a contempt hearing) and did so again with a preliminary injunction order on Tuesday. Far quieter in his older age, the judge who has regularly sparred with the executive branch over his nearly 40 years on the bench still maintains a strong command of his courtroom on the sixth floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in D.C. When Littman insisted that the plaintiffs’ lawyer, the ACLU of D.C.’s Michael Perloff, was incorrect to call the Federal Bureau of Prisons’s policy a “categorical ban,” Lamberth essentially told Littman that that was how he read the policy himself. The best Littman could come back with is that the policy requires “individualized tapering bans,” but Lamberth pushed back, and eventually Littman acknowledged that the end goal of the policy is discontinuing hormone therapy for any of the roughly 600 trans federal inmates on hormones.

It was the actual legal arguments advanced by DOJ on Wednesday, however, that signal how far the administration appears ready to go to attack not just those 600 people’s medical treatment but any trans people’s medical care and broader legal recognition. [...] The arguments are unlikely to work before Lamberth, but the case will soon be back before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where Lamberth’s initial rulings faced more scrutiny and the court sent the case back for more individualized development. After that, possibly, the case could find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. At that point, DOJ would have a far more receptive audience judging by Roberts’s Skrmetti decision for the court (and other Republican appointees’ writings in that case).

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