United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-3371 JANIAH MONROE, et al., individually and on behalf of a class of similarly situated individuals, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v. STEVEN BOWMAN, et al., Defendants-Appellants. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 3:18-cv-00156-NJR — Nancy J. Rosenstengel, Chief Judge. ____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 19, 2024 — DECIDED DECEMBER 5, 2024 ____________________

Before ROVNER, HAMILTON, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. For six years, the district court has presided over this class action challenging the treatment of prisoners with gender dysphoria by the Illinois Depart- ment of Corrections. The defendant prison officials appeal several injunctions and a finding of civil contempt by the dis- trict court. 2 No. 23-3371

Injunctive relief in this case is subject to the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, which includes in 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(2) this provision that governs the outcome of this appeal: “Preliminary injunctive relief shall automatically expire on the date that is 90 days after its entry, unless the court makes the findings required under subsection (a)(1) for the entry of prospective relief and makes the order final before the expiration of the 90-day period.” The district court issued a preliminary injunction on February 7, 2022. Further injunctions followed to supplement and modify the terms. On November 16, 2023, more than a year and a half after the preliminary injunction was issued, and after defendants invoked the 90-day limit in § 3626(a)(2), the district court ruled that its original label — literally “Preliminary Injunction” — had been a mistake. The judge wrote that the February 7, 2022 order was actually in substance a permanent injunction. The judge ordered the clerk of the court to amend the docket to label the injunction permanent and to issue a final judgment consistent with the February 7, 2022 decision. The court did not use the Latin phrase “nunc pro tunc” (“now for then”) but the label fits this attempt to transform retroactively a preliminary injunction into a permanent one. This substantive, retroactive transformation was not authorized. Federal courts may issue nunc pro tunc orders to “reflect the reality” of what has already occurred, but the court “cannot make the record what it is not.” Missouri v. Jenkins, 495 U.S. 33, 49 (1990), quoted in Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan v. Acevedo Feliciano, 589 U.S. 57, 64–65 (2020); accord, e.g., United States v. Daniels, 902 F.2d 1238, 1241 (7th Cir. 1990) (“A judge may correct a clerical error at any No. 23-3371 3 time” but “may not rewrite history.”). The attempted retroactive change here cannot be deemed a correction of a clerical or typographical error. And the attempted retroactive change would also impair defendants’ substantive rights. Parties are entitled to take federal court orders at face value. They are not required to divine what the judge might have meant, contrary to what the judge actually said. E.g., Grede v. FC Stone, LLC, 746 F.3d 244, 255–58 (7th Cir. 2014) (bankruptcy court’s authorization of a post-petition transfer of funds could not be “clarified” retroactively to deem the transfer unauthorized; despite judge’s later regrets, supposed “clarification” of order ran contrary to its plain language). Under § 3626(a)(2), the preliminary injunction issued on February 7, 2022 expired 90 days later, on May 8, 2022. Accordingly, we vacate all existing injunctions and remand for further proceedings co