Transgender inmate sues over Trump's order curtailing trans rights
The transgender woman said Trump's executive order would cut off her access to hormones and require that she be moved to a men's prison.
BOSTON — A transgender woman serving in a federal prison has filed a lawsuit arguing that President Donald Trump‘s executive order directing the U.S. government to recognize only two, unchangeable sexes and requiring inmates like her to be housed in men’s prisons violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
In a lawsuit filed on Sunday in Boston federal court, the inmate, who is being represented by lawyers at rights groups including GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, took aim at an order Trump signed on his first day back in office on Jan. 20 targeting what he called “gender ideology extremism.”
The lawsuit appeared to be the first to be filed nationally challenging the order, which directs the federal government to only recognize two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female; house transgender women in men’s prisons; and cease funding any gender-affirming medical care for inmates.
Trump’s executive order discriminated based on sex in violation of the plaintiff’s due process rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment by requiring prison officials to treat incarcerated people differently depending on their sex, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiff’s impending transfer to a men’s prison also would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, and depriving the plaintiff of medically necessary healthcare would violate a federal law known as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, according to the lawsuit.
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