Us Court Permits Transfer Of Transgender Women To Men’s Prisons — For Now

By Author: The Law Reporters
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A US appeals court on Friday declined to block the administration of President Donald Trump from transferring 18 transgender women in federal custody to men’s prisons, but gave a federal judge — who had earlier found the move unconstitutional — another opportunity to review the matter.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ decision last year to transfer the women, in line with an executive order issued by Trump, was “the product of deliberate, individualised determinations rather than happenstance”.

US District Judge Royce Lamberth had temporarily blocked the transfers last year, ruling that housing transgender women in men’s prisons violated their constitutional rights by placing them at substantial risk of harm.

However, the DC Circuit said Lamberth had not sufficiently explained how each of the 18 plaintiffs was particularly vulnerable to violence or abuse, and remitted the case to him for further proceedings.

The court “remains free to consider, as it deems appropriate, whether plaintiffs ...
... may be entitled to relief on … grounds that may be supported by further findings of fact and analysis,” Circuit Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote, joined by Circuit Judge Sri Srinivasan. Both judges were appointed by former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Circuit Judge A. Raymond Randolph dissented, arguing that the plaintiffs were required to file internal grievances with the Bureau of Prisons before initiating legal action and had failed to do so. He accused his colleagues of devising a rationale to return the case to Lamberth “to repackage relief”. Randolph was appointed by former Republican President George H.W. Bush.

The US Department of Justice and GLAD Law, an LGBTQ legal group representing the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In one of the first actions of his second term last year, Trump issued an executive order targeting what he described as “gender ideology extremism”. The order directed the federal government to recognise only two biologically distinct sexes — male and female — to house transgender women in men’s prisons, and to cease funding gender-affirming medical care for inmates.

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