NCLR, GLAD Law, Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP, and Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP represent three transgender women in a case challenging a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy directed by President Trump which would override Prison Rape Elimination Act protections for vulnerable populations, including transgender women, and would terminate all medical care for gender dysphoria for incarcerated individuals. As a result of the policy, which stems from a January 20, 2025, Executive Order issued by President Trump, the plaintiffs were at imminent risk of being moved to a men’s facility and having their necessary medical care withdrawn.
The complaint, filed January 30, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the policies required by the new executive order violate the Administrative Procedure Act because they are arbitrary and capricious and also directly conflict with a Prison Rape Elimination Act regulation requiring prison officials to make housing determinations based on an individualized assessment of safety and security. The complaint also alleges that the policies required by the new Executive Order are unconstitutional because they discriminate based on a person’s transgender status, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
A federal judge granted the preliminary injunction in our case representing three incarcerated transgender women at risk of being transferred to a men’s facility and having their necessary medical care stopped and did the same for subsequent preliminary injunction requests for our other ten clients (some of whom were already transferred to men’s facilities and must now be transferred back). This blocks the BOP from enforcing President Trump’s executive order against our clients, while our case against it continues. The administration has appealed these preliminary injunctions, and we are preparing to defend them in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
This case was previously called Doe v. McHenry.
