A “transgender” prison inmate has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging the executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” which removed men from women’s prisons.
The order not only removed men from women’s prisons but also directed the Federal Bureau of Prisons to cease providing sex-change hormones and procedures.
Specifically, the directive states no federal funds can be spent “for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug” for “conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The plaintiff, using the pseudonym “Maria Moe,” claims the order infringes on his “due process rights” under the Fifth Amendment and constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment,” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment.
The lawsuit claims:
Consistent with this standard of care, Maria Moe has lived as a woman and has taken hormones continuously since she was a teenager. During her term of incarceration, she has always been treated as a woman by federal correctional officials and her peers. She has never been housed in a men’s facility and has never stopped taking hormones. Until January 23, 2025, publicly available records from the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) identified her sex as “female.” On January 25, the same records classified her as “male” because of the Executive Order.
The complaint also states that Moe was placed in solitary confinement one day after the order was issued on Inauguration Day, in preparation for a transfer to a men’s prison.
“BOP officials informed her that because of the Order, she was being transferred to a men’s facility. Maria Moe remains in the SHU pending transfer. She has not been permitted to have contact with others for at least four days,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawyers representing Moe claim that if he is moved to a male facility, he “will not be safe.”
“She will be at an extremely high risk of harassment, abuse, violence, and sexual assault,” the complaint reads. “She may be subject to strip searches by male correctional officers. She may be forced to shower in full view of men who are incarcerated. And she will predictably experience worsening gender dysphoria, which can lead to serious harm, including dramatically increased rates of suicidality and depression.”
Approximately 15 percent of the inmates in women’s prisons are biological males who claim to be “transgender,” according to the Bureau of Prisons. Just 750 female prisoners identify as “male” and are in men’s prisons.
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