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An incarcerated trans woman is suing the Trump administration over the President's recently issued anti-trans executive order.
Trump signed the order, titled "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” on day one of his second term. In addition to mandating a strict, binary definition of gender and potentially invalidating X gender markers on passports, the order would bar incarcerated trans women from being housed in women’s facilities and deny all trans inmates access to gender-affirming care.
In response, an incarcerated trans woman known pseudonymously as Maria Moe filed a lawsuit against Trump in an attempt to block the order, on the basis that it violates the Constitution. The lawsuit claims that the order violates due process under the Fifth Amendment, and the Eight Amendment's rules against cruel and unusual punishment. The National Center for Lesbian Rights, G.L.B.T.Q. Advocates and Defenders, and private law firm Lowenstein Sandler filed the 24-page complaint in federal court in Massachusetts on Sunday, per the New York Times. It states that Moe “has lived as a woman and has taken hormones continuously since she was a teenager,” and that her sex has been recorded in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) records as “female” until recently. However, on January 25, Moe’s sex was reportedly listed as “male” in accordance with the executive order. According to the complaint, Moe was removed from the general population at her women’s prison, placed in solitary confinement, and informed that she would be imminently transferred to a men’s facility due to the executive order.
The lawsuit states that Moe’s safety will be significantly compromised if she is transferred to a men’s facility, including being “at an extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence, and sexual assault,” and experiencing “worsening gender dysphoria.” Incarcerated trans women already experience greater risks than everyone else — according to the Marshall Project, only 10 of more than 1,000 trans women in federal prisons are incarcerated in women's facilities. Analysis from the Williams Institute has also shown that 37% of trans people report being assaulted while incarcerated, compared to 3.4% of non-trans people. Trans people are also more likely to be thrown in solitary confinement, at 28.2%, as opposed to 18.2% of non-trans people.
Moe is requesting declaratory judgment stating that the executive order violates her rights, in addition to a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the order.
Moe’s lawsuit comes in the wake of a settlement agreement between incarcerated trans woman Grace Pinson and the BOP, after Pinson filed dozens of lawsuits alleging that she had been repeatedly abused by fellow inmates and staff, and denied access to gender-affirming care. Pinson was paid $95,000 in exchange for dropping all of her remaining lawsuits against the BOP, according to The Marshall Project.
Them has reached out to the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
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