A federal judge in the District of Columbia Monday issued a temporary restraining order halting the Trump administration’s plans to move transgender inmates to facilities corresponding to their biological sex.
“[P]ending further Order of this Court, Defendants shall maintain and continue the plaintiff’s housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to January 20, 2025,” wrote Royce C. Lamberth, a Reagan-appointed U.S. district court judge.
Lamberth noted a “likelihood of success on the merits of the plaintiffs’ Eighth Amendment claim” but said the court “still takes no position” on other claims made in a lawsuit filed last week. The Eighth Amendment bars “cruel and unusual” punishment of prisoners.
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The lawsuit filed Friday, Jane Doe v. Pamela Bondi, alleges that President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” signed in January, “targets transgender individuals and attempts to strip them of established legal protections.”
The anonymous names of the dozen inmates in the lawsuit filed Friday are: Jane Doe, Mary Doe, Sara Doe, Emily Doe, Zoe Doe, Tori Doe, Olivia Doe, Susan Doe, Lois Doe, Sophia Doe, Sally Doe and Wendy Doe.
The inmates, all of whom are transgender women, “will not be safe” if transferred to men’s facilities, the lawsuit states, and the inmates will be at risk of “sexual harassment, assault, and rape.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also alleged Sara Doe “may be forced to shower in full view of men who are incarcerated, and her breasts and female genitalia will be exposed.” Similar charges were made throughout the lawsuit for the other trans inmates.
Trump’s executive order prohibits taxpayer dollars “expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
“The medical standard of care for treatment of gender dysphoria is to allow a transgender person to live in a sex different than their birth sex through medications, surgical care, and social transition,” the lawsuit claims.
The trans inmates were warned by BOP officials last week that the DOJ had notified the warden to transfer all of them to men’s facilities and that the transfers could happen as early as Monday, “and that their medical treatment would be cut off in the men’s facilities,” according to the lawsuit.
“On or about February 21, 2025, BOP officials at [redacted] told Susan Doe, Lois Doe, and Olivia Doe that they were all being transferred to male facilities imminently,” the lawsuit said.
This isn’t the first lawsuit lobbed against the Trump administration as it attempts to override “radical gender ideology” within the federal government. The first lawsuit against Trump’s “two sexes” executive order came from a transgender inmate receiving taxpayer-funded medical treatments just days after Trump signed the order.
That inmate, anonymously identified as Maria Moe, is being represented by advocacy groups GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders and National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lowenstein Sandler LLP. Once Trump signed the executive order, Moe was transferred to a men’s prison facility, and BOP records changed the sex from “female” to “male,” the complaint says.
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While the latest lawsuit identifies BOP acting director William Lothrop as one of the defendants, Lothrop announced his retirement – among a slew of other BOP executives – and is expected to step down by the end of the month, the Washington Post reported.
Fox News Digital’s requests for comment from the White House, BOP and Justice Department were not returned by time of publication.
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