Donald Trump’s plan to relocate transgender prisoners to men’s prisons has sparked a wave of debate. Now, one inmate is firing back with a lawsuit.
A transgender woman, identified as Maria Moe, filed a federal lawsuit Sunday in Massachusetts, challenging an executive order issued by Trump on his first day in office. The order mandates that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) house transgender inmates based on their sex at birth and bans gender-affirming medical care in federal prisons.
“The Order directly targets transgender Americans by attempting to deny them legal recognition under federal law and to strip them of long-established legal protections,” the complaint reads. Filed by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Lowenstein Sandler LLP, the suit argues the order violates the Fifth and Eighth Amendments and bypasses federal rulemaking protocols.
Moe, who has been accepted as a woman since middle school and treated as female in prison records, was reclassified as “male” following the order. She was transferred to a special housing unit and informed of her imminent relocation to a men’s facility, a move she is unable to contest.
The lawsuit asserts the order’s “timing, content, and context” expose discriminatory intent. It replaces Obama-era guidelines that prioritized transgender inmates’ safety with policies grounded in what Trump’s administration calls “biological truth.”
The Justice Department has yet to comment on the lawsuit.
