DOJ reverses Biden-era support for taxpayer-funded trans surgeries for inmates

The Department of Justice announced Friday that it has withdrawn a Biden administration statement of interest supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for inmates, calling the stance by the prior administration an abuse of the legal system driven by politics rather than law.

In filings submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division withdrew a statement of interest in one case and filed a new statement in another, both involving inmates seeking sex reassignment surgeries at taxpayer expense. The department said the new filings expose how the previous administration manipulated medical guidelines to “try to create an inmate’s right to optional surgeries where no such entitlement exists.”

“In both Fuller v. Georgia Dep’t. of Corrections and Doe v. Fuller v. Georgia Dep’t. of Corrections, the plaintiffs sought sexual reassignment surgeries at state expense. The prior administration portrayed such claims as necessary medical care for gender dysphoria under the ADA,” the Justice Department explained in a press release. “That portrayal was based on guidelines that were political motivated and based on junk science. The administration has now corrected the record by removing the statement that was filed in Doe and filing a new statement in Fuller that correctly explains the extent of the ADA and the Eighth Amendment.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division said the Biden administration’s arguments were based on “junk science” and misrepresented constitutional rights.

“There has never been an Eighth Amendment right for inmates to demand elective and experimental surgeries. States’ limited resources need not be wasted to provide these dubious surgeries to inmates,” Dhillon said. “The prior administration’s nonsensical reading of the Americans with Disabilities Act was an affront to the very people the statute intended to protect.”