Judge Blocks Transfer of Transgender Inmates to Male Prisons
The Facts
- A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction extending a block on the Bureau of Prisons from transferring 12 transgender female inmates to male facilities, following US Pres. Donald Trump's Jan. 20 executive order requiring federal facilities to house inmates according to biological sex.
- Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan-era appointee, determined that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed in their Eighth Amendment claim that the transfers would constitute cruel and unusual punishment.
- Lawyers for the plaintiffs argued that transferring transgender inmates to male prisons would put them at substantial risk of harassment and violence. The government's lawyers argued that Lamberth doesn't have jurisdiction over the prison plans.
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The Spin
Democratic narrative
Sadly, these transfers are just part of the transphobic measures that transgender people are facing under the Trump administration. Being transferred to a male prison would violate the prisoners' constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment and put them at risk of physical and sexual violence. The courts must protect them.
Republican narrative
Trump campaigned on a message of protecting women from the radical left's attempt to make them insignificant. The people elected him to enact the type of policies that would keep biological men out of women's prisons. Although Democrats are intent on tying up these actions in the courts, eventually biological women will be safer.
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