Federal Judge Temporarily Blocks Transfer Of Trans Woman To Men's Prison

U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole's ruling prevents part of President Donald Trump's "two sexes" executive order from going into immediate effect.

A federal judge temporarily blocked prison officials from moving a transgender woman to a men’s prison and cutting off her access to gender-affirming care.

The temporary restraining order issued on Sunday from U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole prevents part of President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring there are only “two sexes” from going into immediate effect. The order, signed by the president on his first day in office, called on government officials to ensure that there are no transgender women in women’s detention centers and that no federal funds are used to provide gender-affirming care to people in Bureau of Prisons custody.

The day after Trump signed the executive order, BOP moved a transgender woman in Massachusetts identified as Maria Moe into a solitary confinement unit typically used for disciplinary purposes, pending transfer to a men’s facility. Moe sued the Trump administration on Sunday night — the first known legal challenge to the executive — alleging that the directive put her safety at risk. The case was sealed until Thursday, when the court held a hearing on whether to grant Moe further relief.

“We are relieved that our client is staying put for now,” Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law and one of Moe’s lawyers, said in a statement. “For over ten years, prison officials have had the discretion to make individualized housing decisions to protect transgender women from severe violence in men’s facilities. Corrections experts agree that case-by-case assessment is crucial for safety throughout the prison system and oppose any blanket rule that would overturn a policy that has been proven to work.”

Moe identified as a girl by the time she was in middle school, began medically transitioning when she was 15 years old, and has been incarcerated in women’s facilities since her arrest. Her incarceration was “generally unremarkable,” her mother wrote in an affidavit. On Jan. 21, the day after Trump signed the executive order, Moe called her mother “frantic” and told her “through tears” that she was going to be transferred to a men’s prison because of the order, according to the affidavit. By Jan. 25, her sex classification on publicly available BOP records had been changed from “female” to “male.”