US Court Permits Transfer of Transgender Women to Men’s Prisons — For Now

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.

 

Several legal challenges brought by transgender inmates were consolidated before Lamberth, who in February 2025 blocked the transfer of three inmates to men’s prisons. He later extended that ruling to the remaining 15 plaintiffs in Friday’s case.

 

In the government’s appeal, the plaintiffs did not argue that all transgender women must be housed in women’s prisons. Instead, they contended that they were particularly vulnerable to violence due to factors such as the duration of hormone therapy, their physical appearance, and histories of sexual assault.

The DC Circuit panel, however, said Lamberth had not adequately weighed those factors in each individual case, as required under federal law governing prison condition claims.

In a separate ruling last June, Lamberth held that federal prisons must continue providing gender-affirming care to transgender inmates pending a legal challenge to Trump’s order halting its funding.

 

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