GLAD Law, NCLR, Brown Goldstein & Levy LLP and Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld LLP represent three transgender women in a case challenging a federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) policy directed by President Trump which would override Prison Rape Elimination Act protections for vulnerable populations, including transgender women, and would terminate all medical care for gender dysphoria for incarcerated individuals. As a result of the policy, which stems from a January 20, 2025, Executive Order issued by President Trump, the plaintiffs were at imminent risk of being moved to a men’s facility and having their necessary medical care withdrawn.
The complaint, filed January 30, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the policies required by the new executive order violate the Administrative Procedure Act because they are arbitrary and capricious and also directly conflict with a Prison Rape Elimination Act regulation requiring prison officials to make housing determinations based on an individualized assessment of safety and security. The complaint also alleges that the policies required by the new Executive Order are unconstitutional because they discriminate based on a person’s transgender status, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, and violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.
A hearing on the motion took place in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on February 4, 2025, at 11am (EST) and the judge granted plaintiffs’ motion for a Temporary Restraining Order later that day. The order is here. The order reads in part:.
“Plaintiffs have straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow if their TRO request is denied. This is so because “a prospective violation of a constitutional right constitutes irreparable injury . . . .” Davis v. Dist. of Columbia, 158 F.3d 1342, 1346 (D.C. Cir.1998). And this is to say nothing of the substantial harms that plaintiffs have plausibly stated, through affidavit, will follow if the plaintiffs are denied their hormone therapy. See generally Ettner Aff.
Moreover, the balance of the equities and the public interest favor the plaintiffs. Even if the Court credits the Executive Order’s representation that housing biological males in female penitentiaries has some deleterious effect on privacy and security, by the defendants’ own admission, there are only about sixteen male-to-female transgender women housed in female penitentiaries, including the plaintiffs. Stover Decl. ¶ 6, Gov’s Opp’n Ex. 1, ECF No. 11-1. And the defendants have not so much as alleged that the plaintiffs in this particular suit present any threat to the female inmates housed with them, or that this threat cannot be managed locally by prison staff. Thus, the public interest in seeing the plaintiffs relocated immediately to male facilities is slight at best. And it is hard to cognize of any public interest in the immediate cessation of their hormone therapy-aside, perhaps, from whatever small sum of money the BOP may save by ceasing administration of these drugs, or the abstract interest in the enforcement of Executive Branch policy decisions. The plaintiffs’ interests, on the other hand, are not abstract at all, as discussed above. The balance of the equities therefore favors a TRO so that the litigation may run its course.
Therefore, upon consideration of the plaintiffs’ Motion [ECF No. 13] for a Temporary Restraining Order, the defendant’s Opposition [ECF No. 11] thereto, and the entire record herein, it is hereby
ORDERED that the plaintiffs’ Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order is GRANTED;
and it is further
ORDERED that the defendants are temporarily enjoined and restrained from
implementing Sections 4(a) and 4(c) of Executive Order 14168, pending further Order of this
Court; and it is further
ORDERED that, pending further Order of this Court, defendants shall maintain and
continue the plaintiffs’ housing status and medical care as they existed immediately prior to
January 20, 2025.”
Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction
Memorandum in Support of TRO and Preliminary Injunction
Memorandum in Opposition to TRO and Preliminary Injunction
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