Judge Blocks Trump Policy That Would Move Trans Women to Men’s Prisons
A federal court found that 14 transgender women in federal custody face serious risks of violence, sexual assault, and irreparable harm if transferred under Trump’s prison policy.
A federal judge has again blocked the Trump administration from transferring transgender women in federal custody to men’s prisons, finding that 14 incarcerated women are likely to succeed in their challenge to a policy that would remove case-by-case safety review from prison placement decisions.
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted a preliminary injunction barring the Bureau of Prisons from applying part of President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14168 to the plaintiffs while their case continues. The order requires the Bureau of Prisons to maintain the women’s current placements in women’s prisons and halfway houses during the litigation.
The ruling is narrow. It does not block the policy nationwide. It applies only to the 14 transgender women before the court.
But the decision is still significant because it directly rejects a categorical prison policy that would move transgender women into men’s facilities without accounting for their documented vulnerabilities, medical histories, prior placement decisions, or specific safety risks.
Lamberth found that each plaintiff had shown a likelihood of success on the merits of her claims and a likelihood of imminent and irreparable harm if transferred.
The case stems from Trump’s January 20, 2025, executive order directing federal agencies to recognize only two sexes and requiring federal prisons to house people according to sex assigned at birth. For transgender women already housed in women’s facilities, the policy threatened transfer to men’s prisons regardless of prior safety assessments or documented risks.
The plaintiffs argued that such transfers would expose them to grave danger, including physical violence, sexual assault, severe psychological distress, self-harm, and other harms that prison officials could not simply address after the fact.
The court agreed that the risk could not be treated as abstract.
Lamberth first intervened earlier in the litigation after finding that the plaintiffs had shown a likelihood of success on claims that forcing transgender women into men’s prisons could violate their constitutional rights. The case later moved through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which largely allowed the plaintiffs’ challenge to continue but instructed the district court to make more specific findings before extending injunctive relief.
The appeals court noted that the record contained “ample, uncontested evidence” that some plaintiffs had characteristics making them uniquely vulnerable in men’s prisons, including histories of sexual assault, self-harm, and gender-affirming medical treatment.
The new ruling was the district court’s response.
After reviewing evidence for each of the 14 women, Lamberth concluded that the plaintiffs had established a substantial risk of serious harm if transferred. The court rejected the government’s argument that low reported assault rates at the men’s facilities where the women might be sent resolved the issue.
The judge wrote that the relevant question was not whether those facilities had low general assault rates. The question was whether these plaintiffs face substantial risks because of their distinctive characteristics.
That distinction sits at the center of the ruling.
The court found that the plaintiffs are not typical prisoners arriving at men’s facilities. They are transgender women who have been living in women’s prisons or halfway houses and who, according to the court record, may be visibly feminized, medically vulnerable, or known to be transgender in ways that increase the risk of victimization.
Lamberth pointed to evidence that transferring transgender women from women’s prisons to men’s facilities can mark them as targets. The court cited expert testimony that such transfers can increase vulnerability to violence, sexual assault, and psychological harm.
The ruling also sharply rejected the government’s argument that harms could be addressed through treatment or intervention after transfer.
“It is fundamentally unreasonable for prison officials to respond to serious risks such as mental health deterioration, self-harm, and suicide by intentionally creating those risks and offering to treat them after they predictably occur,” Lamberth wrote.
That sentence is the core of the ruling.
The court was not only evaluating prison assignment paperwork. It was addressing whether the government can knowingly create danger for transgender women in custody and then claim that later medical or mental health treatment is an adequate response.
Lamberth found that the Bureau of Prisons adopted a categorical transfer policy without first considering whether each plaintiff could be safely housed in a women’s facility. He concluded that the policy failed to account for documented vulnerabilities and the specific risks facing the women in the case.
For the plaintiffs, those risks were not speculative.
They included histories of sexual assault, self-harm, gender dysphoria, mental health concerns, gender-affirming care, and the heightened danger that can come when transgender women are placed in men’s prisons. The court found that forcing transfers under the policy would likely expose the women to harm that could not be undone later.
The ruling also matters because it limits the administration’s ability to treat transgender women in custody as a category rather than as individual people with documented safety needs.
The Bureau of Prisons already has experience making placement decisions. Those decisions often require evaluating medical needs, security classifications, prior assaults, vulnerability, facility conditions, and the risk of victimization. The plaintiffs argued that Trump’s policy stripped away that review process when it came to transgender women.
Lamberth’s order restores that protection for the 14 plaintiffs while the case proceeds.
The judge stressed that the injunction is narrowly tailored. It does not require the Bureau of Prisons to house all transgender women in women’s facilities. It does not block the executive order nationwide. It does not prevent prison officials from making case-by-case decisions consistent with safety and legal obligations.
It prevents the government from transferring these 14 women to men’s prisons under the challenged policy while their legal claims continue.
Lamberth also found that maintaining the plaintiffs’ current placements would not harm public safety or disrupt the operation of the federal prison system.
Attorneys representing the women described the ruling as a major victory.
Jennifer Levi, senior director of transgender and queer rights at GLAD Law, said the order could not be more consequential because the women protected by it face “the most horrific consequences imaginable” if transferred, including violence, sexual assault, and grave harm to physical safety and well-being.
Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, said the decision reaffirmed that government officials cannot knowingly place people in grave danger and then look away.
The ruling arrives as litigation continues over the treatment of transgender people in federal custody. Lamberth also addressed a separate federal case out of Texas in which a judge recently ordered prison officials to segregate transgender women from cisgender women at the Federal Medical Center Carswell, where four of the plaintiffs in the Washington case are housed.
Lamberth said the two rulings do not conflict. His order prevents the plaintiffs from being transferred to men’s prisons, but it does not require the Bureau of Prisons to house transgender women alongside cisgender women or give access to shared spaces.
That clarification matters because the government may face overlapping and competing litigation involving transgender people in custody, women’s facilities, segregation, and prison safety. Lamberth’s ruling focuses on the specific plaintiffs before him and the risk of moving them into men’s prisons under a categorical executive policy.
The Advocate reported that the Bureau of Prisons did not immediately respond to questions about whether it intends to comply with the order, whether it plans to appeal, and how transgender women are currently being housed in the federal prison system.
For trans women in custody, the case reaches beyond administrative classification.
Prison placement can determine exposure to violence, access to medical care, mental health stability, and daily survival. When the government controls every part of a person’s environment, the duty to consider known risks becomes more than paperwork. It becomes a constitutional safety question.
The court’s ruling does not end the case. The litigation will continue, and the administration may still defend the policy as the case moves forward.
But for now, the court has drawn a line around these 14 women.
A prison policy cannot erase documented danger. It cannot treat known vulnerability as irrelevant. It cannot knowingly create risks of sexual assault, violence, self-harm, or psychological deterioration and then offer treatment after those risks predictably occur.
That is the public-record significance of the ruling.
The court found that these women are likely to succeed in showing that the government cannot use a categorical policy to place them in serious danger while ignoring the evidence of what could happen to them.
For transgender women in federal custody, that is not an abstract legal question.
It is the difference between being assessed as people with documented risks and being transferred under a policy that treats their safety as secondary to politics.
This report is part of the public record on attacks against trans people, prison safety, state violence, and policies that place transgender people in danger while in government custody.
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