Judge blocks transfers of 3 transgender inmates to men’s prison
A federal judge agreed Tuesday to temporarily block prison officials from transferring three incarcerated transgender women to men’s facilities and terminating their access to hormone therapy under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Tuesday to temporarily block prison officials from transferring three incarcerated transgender women to men’s facilities and terminating their access to hormone therapy under an executive order signed by President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., granted the inmates’ request for a temporary restraining order. He issued a written ruling several hours after a hearing where a plaintiffs’ attorney argued that Trump’s order discriminates against transgender people and violates their constitutional rights.
The judge is presiding over a lawsuit filed on behalf of three transgender women who were housed in women’s facilities before Trump signed the order on Jan. 20, his first day back in the White House.
On Jan. 26, a federal judge in Boston issued a restraining order in a separate challenge to the same executive order. That order was limited to one transgender woman in a woman’s prison.
Trump’s order requires the federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure that “males are not detained in women’s prisons.” It also requires the bureau to revise its medical care policies so that federal funds aren’t spent “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
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