Jonathan Turley skewers judge for ‘virtue signaling’ from bench in inmate sex change ruling

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley criticized a judge for “virtue signaling” during a Wednesday morning appearance on “Fox and Friends.”

United States Senior District Judge Royce Lamberth of the District of Columbia, a Reagan appointee, ruled Tuesday that the implementation of President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order prohibiting the Bureau of Prisons from providing sex changes for inmates violated the Administrative Procedures Act. Turley said that even though the ruling might be upheld, Lamberth’s “hyperbole” was “a terrible mistake.”

“A lot of citizens have difficulty with this, I think many in Congress would like to see this change,” Turley told “Fox and Friends” co-host Lawrence Jones. “It may be difficult for the Trump administration to dislodge this in court. You have medical recommendations to deal with what is called gender dysphoria. And these doctors have submitted material that says, look, this is a legitimate mental illness, and, if it is, then you have to be able to treat it while in prison. That may be difficult to dislodge as it goes up on appeal. It may require Congress to intervene.”

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The Trump campaign ran ads during the 2024 presidential election featuring Vice President Kamala Harris discussing how she pushed “behind the scenes” for transgender prisoners to receive sex changes. Jones questioned if Lamberth was “too political” in his ruling.

“I felt that the opinion drifted into hyperbole and this is a problem we’re seeing with a lot of judges, where they are essentially virtue signaling through their opinion,” Turley said. “And I think that’s a terrible mistake. If you want to say, look, this is a mental illness and we have got to go with the recommendation of doctors, I can understand that. One can disagree with it. Maybe Congress wants to do something about it. But I don’t think that this is a license to have language of that type.”

Jones then brought up the frequent nationwide injunctions being issued against Trump administration policies. Turley expressed hope that the Supreme Court, which heard a special oral argument on the practice centered on rulings temporarily blocking Trump’s order on birthright citizenship, would resolve the questions.

“That’s exactly what we are waiting for from the Supreme Court. They had an argument in the birthright citizenship case to look at national and universal injunctions,” Turley said. “They also have that case in front of them where the Trump administration is saying we have a right to do reductions in force. We have a right to reduce the size of federal – of the federal government. We’re waiting for those decisions and I got to tell you, we have been waiting too long for the Supreme Court to bring clarity to this area.”

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