The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s application to enforce its ban on gender affirming medical care for federal inmates after a judge blocked the policy. The decision keeps the preliminary injunction in place while the administration pursues its appeal.

The justices issued their denial through an unexplained order, offering no reasoning for rejecting the administration’s request. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito noted that they would have granted the application, but neither justice explained why.

Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said the court’s action “protects incarcerated trans people from the administration’s attempt to steamroll over constitutional rights for now.” She cautioned that the dispute and the broader struggle remain unresolved.

“But she added, “the fight to uphold the dignity and respect our community deserves is far from over.” The administration’s failed application marks a temporary victory for inmates seeking continued access to care during the ongoing litigation.

The administration had urged the justices to lift the judge’s order while its appeal proceeds. It argued that the public interest supported enforcement because the policy “provides appropriate, individualized treatment for gender dysphoria, while disallowing only interventions that are medically unnecessary.”

Lawyers representing inmates through the American Civil Liberties Union pushed back against the government’s request. They implored the Supreme Court not to help the administration “overturn a three decades-long status quo.”

The inmates’ lawyers argued that the government had not brought the justices a pressing legal claim at this preliminary stage. Instead, they said officials were unhappy with how the district judge applied settled law to the facts of the case.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, granted a preliminary injunction for the inmates in June. Lamberth said he did not want to enter “the culture war being waged against transgender individuals” and was making a legal decision about the procedures used to implement the policy.

The Washington judge found that the government had failed to follow the proper process before imposing the new restrictions. He called the action “arbitrary and capricious” because it “failed to seriously consider its own experience providing gender-affirming care to inmates for years under its prior policy.”

Lamberth issued another order in August that maintained the injunction. Despite claims from officials, he found that continuing inmates’ medical care while the lawsuit proceeds would not create safety problems.

A federal appellate panel later declined to lift Lamberth’s injunction. That decision came over the dissent of a Trump appointee, leaving the administration to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

In the application to the justices, Solicitor General John Sauer described the Bureau of Prisons’ previous approach as providing two categories of services. The first was what he called “mental-health treatment (such as psychotherapy and psychiatry services).”

Sauer labeled the second category “sex-rejecting interventions (such as sex-trait-modification surgeries, hormone interventions, and social accommodations).” He said the government had concluded that it could no longer justify providing that second category.

According to Sauer, the government reached that conclusion for two reasons. He argued that the interventions were not supported by the latest evidence and that they “raised security and prison-administration concerns that outweighed whatever limited benefits they had.”

The Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene comes after a series of rulings against transgender people involving sports, the military, passports and gender affirming care for minors. In this dispute, however, the administration came up short, leaving Lamberth’s injunction intact as the litigation continues.