United States President Donald Trump has ordered federal prisons to transfer inmates who are transgender women to men’s facilities and stop medical treatments related to gender transition.
LEADERSHIP recalls that the move was part of a wide-ranging executive order issued by Trump on his first day in office meant to limit government recognition of an individual’s gender to their sex at birth.
The directive on prisoners also applies to immigration detainees and is among the more concrete parts of the order.
Trump set some restrictions on housing and health care for transgender prisoners in his previous term, but the new order was more far-reaching.
The Women’s Liberation Front, which defines women based on sex at birth and advocates single-sex prisons, called the directive “a major victory.”
The group is challenging a California law that allowed prisoners to request housing that aligns with their gender identity.
It argues that the law violates the constitutional rights of female inmates who are not transgender, including the Eighth Amendment right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
Trump’s order echoed those arguments, saying that “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety and well-being.”
Advocates on behalf of transgender people and inmates criticised the order, saying it would put them in danger.
“There will be rapes and physical assaults because of this policy,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has represented transgender prisoners.
“It’s also terrible for prison officials, who right now have the authority to use discretion about what makes the most sense for the safety and security of the facility.”
Legal experts said it would also be vulnerable to challenges in the courts.
Federal courts have said that prison systems are required to protect vulnerable prisoners.
Some have also held that they are required to offer medical care such as hormone therapies to prisoners diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the distress associated with a mismatch between one’s body and gender identity.
In 2022, a federal district judge in Illinois ordered the bureau to provide gender-transition surgery for a transgender inmate after finding that denying the procedure was most likely a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which also guarantees the right to necessary medical care.
Federal data shows that transgender prisoners are 10 times as likely to report being sexually victimised than other prisoners.
