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A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked prison officials from transferring 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, who was appointed by former Republican president Ronald Reagan in 1987, is presiding over a lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on behalf of three transgender women who were housed in women's facilities before Trump signed the order on his first day back in the White House on January 20.
Lamberth granted the inmates' request for a temporary restraining order hours after a hearing where a plaintiffs' attorney argued that Trump's order discriminates against transgender people and violates their constitutional rights.
The Justice Department has been approached for comment via a contact form on its website. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and attorneys for the plaintiffs have also been contacted via email.
Why It Matters
Trump's order, one of several that have targeted transgender people, directed the federal government to recognize only two sexes—male and female—and requires the federal Bureau of Prisons to ensure that "males are not detained in women's prisons or housed in women's detention centers."
It also requires the BOP to revise its medical care policies to ensure federal funds aren't spent "for the purpose of conforming an inmate's appearance to that of the opposite sex."
Lamberth's order goes further than a January 26 decision by a federal judge in Boston in a separate challenge to the same order that blocked federal officials from transferring one transgender woman to a men's facility.
What To Know
The plaintiffs, who are identified by pseudonyms in court filings and represented by attorneys from the National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, argued that transgender women would face violence and sexual assault in men's prisons, violating their right to not be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
Justice Department attorney John Robinson argued that prison officials have "broad discretion" to decide where to place inmates, The Associated Press reported.
In his ruling, Lamberth noted that the government did not dispute the plaintiff's argument that transgender people were at a higher risk of physical and sexual violence than other inmates when housed in a facility corresponding to their biological sex.
Lamberth also noted that there are only about 16 transgender women housed in female penitentiaries, including the three plaintiffs who sued.
"The defendants have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them, or that this threat cannot be managed locally by prison staff," he wrote.
"Thus, the public interest in seeing the plaintiffs relocated immediately to male facilities is slight at best. And it is hard to cognize of any public interest in the immediate cessation of their hormone therapy—aside, perhaps, from whatever small sum of money the BOP may save by ceasing administration of these drugs, or the abstract interest in the enforcement of Executive branch policy decisions … the balance of the equities therefore favors a TRO so the litigation may run its course."
The request for a temporary restraining order "is granted on the narrow grounds of the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claims," Lamberth added in the ruling.
"Because the plaintiffs' Eighth Amendment claims are sufficient unto themselves to sustain a TRO, this Court will take no position on the merits of the plaintiffs' equal protection or [Administrative Procedure Act] claims at this time."
What People Are Saying
Jennifer Levi, an attorney representing the plaintiffs and the senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, told Newsweek: "The women we represent are relieved with the issuance of this order. The Court's order ensures that they and other transgender women will stay put where they are and continue to receive the medical care they need. Trump's relentless attacks on vulnerable people cannot remain unchecked. This shows that the courts remain an important backstop to the Trump administration's efforts to secure authoritarian control."
Trump said during his inaugural speech: "I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female."
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told Newsweek: "We all want prisons to be safe and secure. The policy ordered by President Trump undermines that goal by mandating a categorical rule that overrides the discretion of prison officials. This dangerous rule would do nothing other than increase sexual assaults and cause upheaval in our nation's prisons."
What Happens Next
The temporary restraining order blocks the BOP from moving transgender women to men's prisons and ending their gender-affirming care while the lawsuit proceeds.
Update 2/5/25, 8:25 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add a statement from Jennifer Levi.
About the writer
Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's National Correspondent based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on education and national news. Khaleda ... Read more