Two transgender women in prison will be transferred back to a women’s prison after a district court further blocked the Trump administration’s executive order requiring the Bureau of Prisons to only recognize a person’s gender at birth (article available here).
The U.S. District Court in Washington issued a preliminary injunction after the women were added as plaintiffs in ongoing litigation over the impact of Trump’s executive order on transgender women in federal prisons.
The court ordered the federal Bureau of Prisons to “immediately transfer” the two women – identified in court papers by the pseudonyms Rachel and Ellen Doe – back to women’s facilities and said the agency must continue to provide them with hormone therapy treatment for gender dysphoria.
The women said in court papers that they were living in constant fear of sexual assault and other violence after being moved to male prisons. Male inmates repeatedly propositioned them for sex and male officers subjected them strip searches without female officers present.
“The fact that they have already been transferred and, allegedly, have been abused at their new facilities can only strengthen their claims of irreparable harm,” the court wrote.
Separately, in January, a federal court in Boston halted the transfer of another transgender woman to a men’s prison (previous coverage here).