Skip to main content
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Jeanine Pirro
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate

Media Matters for America

  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives

Media Matters for America

  • Nav
  • Search
  • News & Analysis
  • Research & Studies
  • Audio & Video
  • Archives
  • Online media
  • Tariffs
  • Jeanine Pirro
  • Take Action
  • Search
  • Donate
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS
Molly Butler / Media Matters

CNN report failed to include Trump administration policies on access to care for incarcerated trans people

Under federal law, the Bureau of Prisons was required to provide gender-affirming surgery to incarcerated trans people under Trump

Special Programs LGBTQ

Written by Alyssa Tirrell

Published 10/18/24 12:49 PM EDT

A CNN report that sensationalized Vice President Kamala Harris' 2019 position on access to care for incarcerated trans people has continued to drive the election cycle — prompting an extensive ad campaign — even though gender-affirming surgery was available to incarcerated trans people under Donald Trump's presidency. 

CNN's reporting instigated coverage from right-wing media figures and debate commentary from the former president. Even though the Supreme Court has held for half a century that denying incarcerated people medically necessary care is a violation of constitutional rights, right-wing media figures have continued to promote the issue as a supposed indication of Harris' radicalism. 

According to The New Republic and AdImpact, Trump's campaign has invested nearly half of its advertising spending — over $30 million — on ads that emphasize Harris' former position on care for incarcerated trans people. At least one of these ads explicitly references CNN's report. 

Video file

Citation

From the October 16, 2024, edition of Fox News' The Special Report with Bret Baier

However, CNN failed to note — as reported by The New York Times — that “Trump appointees at the Bureau of Prisons, a division of the Justice Department, provided an array of gender-affirming treatments, including hormone therapy, for a small group of inmates who requested it during Mr. Trump’s four years in office.”

According to the Times, the amount the Bureau of Prisons spent on hormone therapy ranged “from $60,000 to $95,000 a year during Mr. Trump’s term” — just .8% of the $12 million the campaign spent in the last few weeks on the ad referencing CNN's report. 

While it is true that no incarcerated trans people in federal prisons received gender-affirming surgeries under Trump's term, such cases would not have violated the bureau's policy while he was in office. Both the first and second — and to date the only, according to an agency spokesperson — trans people to receive gender-affirming surgeries while incarcerated under the Federal Bureau of Prisons first filed suits demanding such care under Trump. 

Additionally, the first two incarcerated people to successfully sue a prison for access to gender-affirming surgery won cases against state facilities while Trump was in office.

In 2015, the state of California settled a case brought by a trans inmate demanding access to surgical care. The case marked “the first person in the U.S. to receive state-funded sex reassignment surgery while incarcerated,” and while it was settled under Harris' tenure as state attorney general, the state-funded surgery actually took place in 2017, while Trump was president. 

A second case, brought in Idaho during Trump’s presidency, rose all the way to the Supreme Court, resulting in state-funded care provided in July 2020. 



Contrary to the implication that incarcerated trans people have unfettered access to gender-affirming care, trans people often have to sue state and federal prisons in order to access necessary care. Only about 1% of those in federal prisons are transgender, and denial of care is often only a part of the conditions they face — including disproportionate rates of violence —  while incarcerated. Both cases through which an incarcerated trans person successfully sued the Bureau of Prisons for access to gender-affirming surgery were the result of lengthy legal battles.

The Latest

  1. Sean Hannity says spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is “a clear, present danger”

    Video & Audio 06/06/25 6:18 PM EDT

  2. Media Matters weekly newsletter, June 6

    Narrative/Timeline 06/06/25 10:45 AM EDT

  3. Fox News has spent years claiming that Inflation Reduction Act policies will make energy more expensive. It was wrong.

    Article 06/06/25 9:03 AM EDT

  4. Fox News ignores the projection that nearly 11 million people will lose health insurance from Trump's spending bill

    Research/Study 06/05/25 5:54 PM EDT

  5. Ben Shapiro says that Tucker Carlson “put out a statement that I think is factually incoherent about Mark Levin's position on Iran and Iran itself”

    Video & Audio 06/05/25 2:33 PM EDT

Pagination

  • Current page 1
  • …
  • Next page ››

In This Article

  • CNN

    CNN-MMFA-Tag.png

Related

  1. CNN sensationalizes care for incarcerated trans people, prompts debate commentary and federal legislation

    Research/Study 09/25/24 2:24 PM EDT

  2. CNN reporting on Harris' 2019 position on access to care for incarcerated trans people fails to include key context

    Article 09/10/24 6:49 PM EDT

  3. GOP candidates are spending millions claiming they’ll protect women’s sports, but MAGA media won’t stop dunking on female athletes

    Article 10/16/24 1:17 PM EDT

Media Matters for America

Sign up for email updates
  • About
  • Contact
  • Corrections
  • Submissions
  • Jobs
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • RSS

© 2025 Media Matters for America

RSS