Trans inmate sues Trump administration in first lawsuit over "two sexes" executive order

President Donald Trump’s inauguration at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Jan. 20, 2025.

A transgender woman serving time in federal prison filed the first federal lawsuit on Sunday challenging Donald Trump’s executive order targeting what he called “gender ideology extremism.”

The executive order, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” and signed on Trump’s first day in office, directs the federal government to recognize only two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female.

Trump followed the announcement with a directive to the federal Bureau of Prisons to move all transgender women prisoners to men’s facilities and cease gender-related healthcare for transgender inmates housed in the federal prison system. The order described such healthcare as “conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

The unnamed plaintiff, who is represented by lawyers at rights groups including GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, claims the executive order and directive infringe on her due process rights under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by requiring prison officials to treat incarcerated people differently depending on their sex, according to the lawsuit.

Her impending transfer to a men’s prison would also violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, the suit states; depriving the plaintiff of medically necessary healthcare would violate a federal law known as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, her lawyers said.

The lawsuit was accessed by Reuters on Sunday but was later sealed.

The plaintiff, identified by the pseudonym Maria Moe, said she was informed the day after Trump’s directive that she was scheduled for transfer from the women’s prison where she was housed to a men’s facility.

The lawsuit states the Bureau of Prisons also changed the plaintiff’s gender identification from “female” to “male” and planned to end her access to hormones she’s taken since her transition as a teenager.

The suit argues the plaintiff’s transfer would put her at “extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence, and sexual assault.”

The directive to prison officials also applies to immigration detainees in federal facilities. It does not address trans men held in detention.

Data from the Department of Justice indicates transgender prisoners are 10 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than straight prisoners.

Multiple court cases have found housing transgender women in men’s facilities and denying gender-related healthcare are violations of the Eight Amendment to the Constitution.

Roughly 1,500 federal prisoners are transgender women, according to the Bureau of Prisons, accounting for 15 percent of the total population of women in prison. 750 men identify as transgender out of about 144,000 male prisoners.

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Originally published here.