Judge Blocks Trump Effort to Move Trans Women to Men’s Prisons
The New York Times
A temporary restraining order blocked the administration from transferring transgender women and from ending gender-transition treatment for prisoners.
A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the Bureau of Prisons from enacting President Trump’s executive order to house transgender women with male inmates and stop medical treatment related to gender transitions.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said that three transgender prisoners who brought a suit to stop the order had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow” if their request for a restraining order were to be denied. Judge Lamberth was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan.
The lawsuit was one of a barrage of legal actions seeking to stop President Trump’s agenda, including several brought on behalf of transgender prisoners, military service members and young people under 19.
The president’s orders have sought to limit government recognition of an individual’s gender to the sex listed on the original birth certificate, bar transgender soldiers from serving in the military and require the Bureau of Prisons to house female transgender prisoners in men’s prisons. Mr. Trump also has called for the halting of any medical treatment to prisoners “for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The president has also issued orders banning the use of federal funds to treat transgender youth or “directly or indirectly” support gender transition for schoolchildren.
The lawsuit at the center of Tuesday’s ruling was filed on behalf of three transgender women who have been housed in women’s facilities and given hormones for gender dysphoria. Under the president’s order, they were facing a transfer to men’s units and the discontinuation of their treatments.
