A small number of transgender women in women’s facilities cannot be transferred to men’s prisons, the judge ruled.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 4, 2025, in Washington. | Evan Vucci/AP
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from moving transgender women prisoners into men’s facilities or taking away their medical care.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee, ruled Tuesday night that the policy — which Trump laid out in an executive order on his first day back in office — would likely violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
The number of transgender women in federal women’s prisons or halfway houses is extremely small: only about 16 nationwide, according to the Justice Department. Of the roughly 2,230 federal inmates who are transgender, more than 99 percent are housed in facilities according to their biological sex, the department said in court papers.
But three transgender women who are currently housed in women’s facilities sued to block provisions of Trump’s executive order — namely a policy that could require them to be transferred to men’s prisons and a policy barring government funds being spent on certain medical care for transgender inmates. Lamberth sided with the inmates and blocked both policies for now.
The judge wrote that the inmates have presented evidence that being moved to men’s prisons would place them at “significantly elevated risk of physical and sexual violence.” They also presented evidence that depriving them of medications to treat gender dysphoria could cause “numerous and severe symptoms,” Lamberth wrote.
The Justice Department had argued that it was too soon for Lamberth to rule on the matter because the transgender inmates had not yet been relocated and, if they were, would first need to avail themselves of formal grievance processes within the Bureau of Prisons before seeking relief from the courts.
But Lamberth said the case is an exception to that typical process because Trump’s executive order “plainly requires the BOP to perform the allegedly unlawful facility transfer and to withhold the prescribed hormone therapy drugs.”
“Thus, there is no form of relief that is within the BOP’s discretion to provide,” Lamberth concluded.
The Justice Department also said that federal laws give extraordinary deference to the Bureau of Prisons to decide where to house inmates. But Lamberth said he was permitted to consider claims of constitutional violations.
Trump’s executive order attempted to remove most transgender-related policies from across the federal government, decrying “ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex.” Lamberth’s order only blocks two provisions within the order, one requiring federal inmates be housed in accordance with their biological sex and one requiring the Bureau of Prisons to ensure “no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The fight over transgender inmates is one of a growing number of legal fights stemming from Trump’s onslaught against the government’s past recognition of transgender rights. Several lawsuits pending in federal court target his order’s restriction on transgender members of the military and the availability of medical services for transgender people outside of prisons.
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