Dee Farmer knows too well what could happen when a trans woman is placed in a prison for men: abuse and assault from prisoners and indifference from prison officials to stop it. While incarcerated in the 1990s, Farmer filed a federal lawsuit alleging that federal prison officials deliberately and indifferently failed to protect her as a prisoner from rape and assault. In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with her complaints, agreeing that the government has a duty to protect a prisoner from violence and acknowledging the vulnerability of trans inmates, NPR reports. It was the first time a trans petitioner had a case accepted by the Supreme Court. The case has been cited repeatedly in lawsuits filed by other trans inmates in state and federal prisons who alleged similar abuse. Last week President Trump, in one of his first executive orders, upended long-standing federal policies that would protect inmates, like Farmer once was, and allowed incarcerated trans women to be housed in a facility that aligns with their gender identity.
The order mandates that the federal Bureau of Prisons no longer allow transgender women to be housed in a women's prison, immigration detention centers or other detention centers that align with their gender identity. It recognizes just two sexes, male and female, halts gender affirming medical treatments, which can include hormone therapy and gender affirming surgery. Access to this care is considered medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria, a medical term used to describe the deep discomfort caused by a mismatch between a person's assigned sex at birth and their gender identity. Without it, individuals can struggle severely with mental health issues such as heightened anxiety and depression, with some turning to self-harm and suicide. This order is one in a series of actions signed by Trump that target the transgender community. In just over a week in office, Trump signed an executive order to ban transgender troops from serving openly in the military and another restricting gender-affirming care for minors.
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