Transgender inmates who were moved from a women’s prison to an all-male facility, after President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating inmates live in facilities corresponding to their biological sex, are now being sent back to the women’s prison after a judge issued a preliminary injunction.
“This is the latest example of an activist judge attempting to seize power at the expense of the American people who overwhelmingly voted to elect President Trump,” a Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement Friday. “The Department of Justice has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Defending Women Executive Order, and will continue to do so.”
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington issued the injunction last week after the two inmates, identified in court documents as Rachel and Ellen Doe, were added as plaintiffs to a lawsuit against Trump’s executive order with nearly a dozen other inmates.
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U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington issued a preliminary injunction allowing biologically male trans women inmates to be sent back to a federal women’s prison. (Getty Images/US District Court of Columbia)
“The fact that they have already been transferred and, allegedly, have been abused at their new facilities can only strengthen their claims of irreparable harm,” Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed U.S. district court judge, wrote in the injunction.
The court documents also allege that since being transferred to a male prison, “they have been unable to access bras and women’s underwear” while being subjected to “sexual harassment” at the new facilities.
The Bureau of Prisons did not respond when reached for comment Friday.
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President Donald Trump’s move to place federal inmates in prisons corresponding to their biological sex has run into court challenges. (Getty Images)
The original lawsuit the two new inmates were added to alleged that “the inmates, all of whom are transgender women, “will not be safe” if transferred to men’s facilities, the lawsuit states, and the inmates will be at risk of “sexual harassment, assault, and rape.”
This injunction adds to a lengthy list of legal battles the Trump DOJ faces regarding the president’s executive orders. The first lawsuit against Trump’s “two sexes” executive order came from a transgender inmate receiving taxpayer-funded medical treatments just days after Trump signed the order in January.
That inmate, anonymously identified as Maria Moe, is being represented by advocacy groups GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Once Trump signed the executive order, Moe was transferred to a men’s prison facility, and BOP records changed the sex from “female” to “male,” the complaint says.
Issues regarding transgender minors and transgender athletes in girls’ and women’s sports are other areas of contention in the courts and state capitols. (Rick Bowmer)
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At least 15 trans prisoners are now protected by orders blocking or reversing the transfers, the Associated Press reported.
Lamberth has not yet ruled on a lawsuit filed this month by three other inmates—a transgender woman in a men’s prison and two transgender men in women’s prisons—who are challenging the executive order’s ban on transgender medical treatments in prisons.