President Trump’s bold executive order banning male inmates from federal women’s prisons has sparked a legal firestorm that’s now burning through the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Just The News reported that this contentious case pits the safety and dignity of female inmates against the rights of transgender male inmates, with the appeals court reviewing lower-court injunctions from three lawsuits challenging Trump’s policy.
Let’s rewind to the start: Trump’s order was a direct attempt to address concerns about female inmates’ safety, a move cheered by many who see women’s prisons as sanctuaries that must be protected.
Fast forward to a recent Friday hearing, which dragged on for over an hour—double the scheduled time—yet astonishingly dedicated less than a minute to the very real plight of female inmates.
Instead, the three-judge panel, made up of two Democratic nominees and one Republican, obsessed over procedural minutiae and technicalities, mulling over whether to send these Eighth Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act cases back to the trial court for more evidence.
One can’t help but wonder if the court forgot who’s most vulnerable here, as the safety of women behind bars got barely a whisper amid all the legal jargon.
At the heart of the plaintiffs’ argument are 19 male inmates who’ve undergone extensive medical treatment to present as women, insisting they must stay in women’s prisons for their own protection.
Originally placed there by the Bureau of Prisons after individual assessments for their safety, these inmates argue no men’s prison accommodations can shield them—a claim bolstered by two plaintiffs who suffered repeated assaults in men’s facilities.
“It’s already happened to many,” said Jennifer Levi of GLAD Law, referencing the violence faced by these plaintiffs, though one might counter that prioritizing a small group’s needs shouldn’t eclipse the broader risks to female inmates.
Down at the district level, Judge Royce Lamberth issued preliminary injunctions blocking Trump’s order, but his repeated extensions—while admitting “nothing had changed”—have raised eyebrows about compliance with the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s 90-day expiration rule.
Judge Raymond Randolph didn’t mince words, stating, “I don’t think we have jurisdiction,” suggesting Lamberth’s actions might defy legal boundaries, a point that could unravel the plaintiffs’ temporary victories.
Meanwhile, the panel questioned whether Lamberth’s broad analysis adequately reviewed each plaintiff’s unique situation, hinting at a judicial overreach that could swing this case back to square one.
Adding salt to the wound, the court denied a motion for intervention by female inmate Rhonda Fleming, whose own lawsuit against prior transgender placement policies is slated for trial, yet her voice was sidelined in this critical hearing.
Similarly, the gender-critical Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) scrambled to file a late friend-of-the-court brief, hampered by the court’s use of pseudonyms and hidden prison locations for plaintiffs, only learning details through a female inmate’s tip.
WoLF’s brief pulls no punches, noting that most trans-identified males in prison—many incarcerated for sex offenses—opt to stay in men’s facilities where assault rates are often lower, a statistic that begs the question of why female inmates should bear disproportionate risks.
