The Trump administration on Friday
rolled back Obama-era rules that allowed transgender inmates to use
facilities, including bathrooms and cell blocks, that match their
gender identity.
BuzzFeed
News reported that the Bureau of Prisons had updated their
policy on the type of housing transgender inmates are assigned.
Going forward, housing assignments will be made based on the
“biological sex” of an inmate.
“The designation to a facility of the
inmate's identified gender would be appropriate only in rare cases,”
the policy now states.
The change is in response to a lawsuit
filed by four evangelical Christian women serving time in a Texas
prison. The women claim that sharing facilities with transgender
women ”creates a situation that incessantly violates the privacy of
female inmates; endangers the physical and mental health of the
female Plaintiffs and others, including prison staff; [and] increases
the potential for rape.”
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, said that the policy change
puts transgender inmates “at significant risk of sexual abuse,
assault and other types of discrimination.”
“The Obama Administration put this
guidance into place after an extensive review to develop workable and
reasonable procedures that would protect some of the most vulnerable
people in our prison system,” HRC Government Affairs Director David
Stacy said in a statement. “The decision to disregard a
transgender person’s gender identity is harmful and disrespectful.
This unconscionable decision ignores medical expertise and defies
common sense. Transgender people under the control of the Bureau of
Prisons will face greater risk of violence and discrimination.”
Mara Keisling, executive director of
the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE), also criticized
the move.
“The extreme rates of physical and
sexual violence faced by transgender people in our nation’s prisons
is a stain on the entire criminal justice system," said
Keisling. "Instead of leaving the existing policy alone, the
administration is clearly prepared to encourage federal prisons to
violate federal law and advance its own inhumane agenda.”