BOSTON — A U.S. judge has temporarily blocked federal prison officials from transferring a transgender woman to a men’s facility and denying her access to gender-affirming care in accordance with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump, her lawyers said on Thursday.
The temporary restraining order was issued by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston on Sunday while the inmate’s case was sealed in what appeared to be the first lawsuit challenging an order Trump signed on Jan. 20, his first day back in office, targeting what he called “gender ideology extremism.”
Trump’s order directed the federal government to only recognize two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female; house transgender women in men’s prisons; and cease funding for any gender-affirming medical care for inmates.
The lawsuit was filed on Sunday by the inmate, known by the pseudonym Maria Moe, and was soon after sealed. O’Toole, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, lifted the seal on Thursday as a hearing was underway on whether he should grant her further relief.
Her case was filed by lawyers at two LGBTQ rights groups including GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, which after the case was unsealed confirmed that O’Toole had on Sunday issued a temporary restraining order that will remain in place while he considers whether to issue a longer-lasting injunction.
The judge’s order requires prison officials to keep the inmate in the general population in a women’s facility and maintain her medical care, GLAD said. Jennifer Levi, a lawyer for the inmate at GLAD, called it a relief her client “is staying put for now.”
O’Toole is still considering whether to issue a longer preliminary injunction. Three other transgender women in prison filed a similar lawsuit on Thursday in Washington, D.C., also challenging Trump’s policy.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston declined to comment.
Moe’s lawyers said that a day after Trump signed his order, officials with the federal Bureau of Prisons informed her she was being transferred from a women’s prison to a men’s facility, exposing her to an “extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence and sexual assault.”
Her lawyers said the Bureau of Prisons switched how it publicly identified her from “female” to “male” and had been poised to cut off the inmate’s access to hormones she has taken since she was a teenager to treat her gender dysphoria.
Her lawyers argued that Trump’s executive order discriminated based on sex in violation of the plaintiff’s due process rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
The lawyers argued that her impending transfer to a men’s prison also would violate the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.
