A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to block a Kentucky law that bans transgender procedures on the state’s prison inmates while the case is being heard.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a biological male, Maddilyn Marcum, who identifies as female, and is imprisoned at the Northpoint Training Center in Boyle County. He had been convicted of murder in 2015 and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Marcum had begun receiving hormone replacement therapy several years earlier.

The suit seeks to block enforcement of Senate Bill 2, passed in the 2025 session, which bans the use of public funds for transgender procedures, including hormone replacement therapy in prisons. After the law went into effect, the Dept. of Corrections reduced and then eliminated Marcum’s procedure. The lawsuit

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