Trump has barred housing transgender women in US prisons for female inmates

Directs the transfer of female trans inmates to all male facilities

Executive order also ends federal funded gender-related medical treatments for transgender people in prison

Trump’s executive order is meant to limit government recognition of an individual’s gender to their sex at birth.

Order reverses Obama era guideline that inmates be housed according to their chosen gender identify

Trump ordered federal prisons to house female trans inmates in men’s facilities and halt medical treatments related to gender transition. There are about 1,500 federal prisoners who are transgender women, according to the Bureau of Prisons

As the slew of undocumented immigrants grappled with an internal memo by the Trump administration giving ICE officials the power to quickly deport migrants who were allowed under Biden-era programs, according to In an executive order, the president also moved to end gender-related medical treatments for transgender people in prison.
President Trump ordered federal prisons to house inmates who are transgender women in men’s facilities and halt medical treatments related to gender transition.
The move was part of a wide-ranging executive order issued by Mr. Trump on his first day in office meant to limit government recognition of an individual’s gender to their sex at birth.

Wide-ranging executive order issued by President Trump on his first day in office is meant to restrict govt. recognition of an individual’s gender to their sex at birth

In a wide spread order lauded by the Women’s Liberation Front, [WLF], which defines women based on sex at birth and advocates single-sex prisons, called the directive “a major victory,” the directive on prisoners also applies to immigration detainees setting far reaching restrictions on extant housing and health care for transgender prisoners.
WLF is challenging a California law that allows prisoners to request housing that aligns with their gender identity on the basis that the law violates the constitutional rights of female inmates who are not transgender, including the Eighth Amendment right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment.
Echoing the argument Trump castigates ‘efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety and well-being.’

Trans inmates who identify as women would have to relive the fears of assault and harassment after they are rehoused in all male facilities, as required by the new executive order

Facilities like the Federal Correctional Institute for Women in Aliceville, Alabama, will have to transfer trans inmates to all male federal penitentiaries

Advocates for transgender rights criticized the order, saying it would put them in danger : ‘There will be rapes and physical assaults because of this policy,’ said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which has represented transgender prisoners. “It’s also terrible for prison officials, who right now have the authority to use discretion about what makes the most sense for the safety and security of the facility.”
On that side of the argument, federal courts in past rulings have maintained that prison systems are required to protect vulnerable prisoners, including the right to access requisite medical care such as hormone therapies to prisoners diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the distress associated with a mismatch between one’s body and gender identity.
In one notable 2022 ruling, a federal district judge in Illinois ordered the US Bureau Of Prisons to provide gender-transition surgery for a transgender inmate after finding that denying the procedure was most likely a violation of the Eighth Amendment, which also guarantees the right to necessary medical care.
Trump’s executive order, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” appears to require the rehousing only of transgender women, not transgender men.

Donald Trump’s executive order, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” appears to require the rehousing of transgender women only, not transgender men

While Transgender people make up less than 1 percent of adults in the United States, according to the Bureau of Prisons, 1,500 federal prisoners are transgender women, representing 15 percent of women in prison, while there are 750 transgender men out of about 144,000 male prisoners.
The Supreme Court acknowledged the vulnerability of transgender inmates decades ago in the 1994 when a transgender woman, Dee Farmer, said she had been raped while housed with men, the court held that the government has a duty to protect prisoners from violence.
At the end of the Obama administration, the Bureau of Prisons released new guidelines requiring that transgender prisoners be housed according to their gender identity – in most cases. The new executive order calls for those regulations to be amended “as necessary.”
In President Trump’s first term, it was revised to institute inmate housing according to “biological sex,” except in rare cases. However, the Biden administration restored the Obama guidelines.
The new executive order requires all gender-transition medical care to cease, as it states that federal funds should not be spent ‘for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.’