Bureau of Prisons to transfer trans inmates as punctual as next week : NPR

The Bureau of Prisons is pushing ahead with arranges to transfer transgender inmates out of prisons that align with their gender identity and into facilities correplying to their intimacy at birth. The transfers could happen as punctual as next week, according to federal inmates and a source understandn with the policy who spoke with NPR on condition of anonymity due to dread of reprisal.

This would nasty transgender women currently hoengaged in women’s facilities would be transferd to men’s facilities, and vice versa. It’s predicted that the transfers will impact trans inmates considerless of whether they’ve getd gender transition srecommendry of any benevolent.

It’s a step that has been foreseed with grave worry by many in the trans and lterrible communities since Plivent Trump signed an executive order that pushed the BOP to produce such a transfer.

The transfer is already being contestd

A litigation filed tardy Friday afternoon by a dozen transgender women inmates is trying to block the BOP from moving the federal prison system’s trans population.

“If transferred, these people, some of who are post-srecommendry, would be at an incredibly high danger of aggression,” said Kara Janssen, the lawyer recurrenting the incarcerated plaintiffs.

Trump’s executive order — which states that the federal handlement acunderstandledges only two intimacyes, male and female — “provides no room for individualized determinations or discretion, does noleang to further getedty and security, and these progressd trys to transfer people and put them in honest harm ecombine to be upgraspd by noleang more than antipathy and nastyty towards this population,” she said in an email to NPR.

The BOP has not replyed to asks from NPR. The agency has not made recommendation about its novel policy unveilly useable, nor has it unveilly declared the reckond transfers.

The plaintiffs, named in the litigation using pseudonyms with their locations redacted, are currently hoengaged in women’s facilities but are stardyd to be transferred.

The litigation says that after weeks of being cautioned that they would be transferd imminently, the women were telderly on Thursday that they were officipartner on the catalog to be transferred to a men’s prison, where their hormone treatments would be cut off. On Friday, the women were deleted from the ambiguous population of their prison into segregated housing.

The women dread intimacyual aggression and other mistreatments if they were to be transferd, the litigation says, in part becaengage some of the women had been aggressioned when previously hoengaged in men’s facilities.

For years, the BOP applied an individual appraisement to choose the appropriate housing for each transgender inmate, taking into account an individual’s getedty and security as well as compliance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

That process was in place until Trump’s executive order was signed on Jan. 20. As it retardys to trans inmates, the order was successbrimmingy contestd in court in two cases where the inmates sued to block the novel rules. In one of those litigations, for example, a federal evaluate on Feb. 4 temporarily blocked the transfer of three transgender women plaintiffs to a men’s facility. However, those rulings only geted the individuals named in the suits, not the rest of the population of trans inmates wilean the federal prison system.

It’s unevident how many people the BOP hopes to transfer in total. Previous data from the BOP website showd there are 1,529 transgender women and 744 transgender men in custody. It’s also unevident how many are currently hoengaged in prisons according to their birth intimacy versus their gender identity. The agency’s website has since deleted references to its trans population.

Prisons telderly to prep for transfers

As the BOP hopes to chase thraw with their arranges as soon as next week, conference calls with prison officials, prison psychologists and others atraverse the country have been held multiple times in the past scant days, said the source understandn with the agency’s arranges.

The source telderly NPR that the BOP was predicting a litigation, and for a possible court order blocking the transfers, but intended to go ahead with the arrange anyway. Officials at individual prisons won’t commence moving people until they get the go-ahead from the BOP, the source said, and it’s unevident when that would happen. The bureau is well conscious of worrys about potential dangers of aggression, intimacyual arrangeility and self-injurys, which have been liftd by officials, according to the source.

Efforts are being made at at least one prison to set distinctiveized housing units for trans inmates to impede mistreatment and aggression, the source said, and each individual’s security level generpartner is being pondered — for example, an inmate at a low-security prison would only be transferd to another low-security federal facility.

AJ Diciesare, a transgender man who is currently hoengaged in a women’s prison, does not predict to be transferd becaengage his facility correplys to his dispenseed intimacy at birth. But he telderly NPR he’s cowardly of what these efforts aiming trans inmates nasty for him and others. He’s been taking hormones for years and said he worries those will soon be getn away.

“It’s not equitable a physical retreatal. It’s mental anguish,” he said, describing how he has felt when he has been getn off the medication.

He’s tried to get definitive answers from prison officials on what is happening next, but he’s heard noleang. “That’s produceing anguish,” he said.

He said he has spoken to the trans women in his prison and has seen dread on their faces ever since they were telderly that the BOP arranges to transfer them to male facilities next week. Two women he spoke to are pondered to have brimmingy undergone the gender-declareing process, including srecommendries, Diciesare said. They are still on the catalog to be transferd.

“I understand we broke laws. However, we are still humans. We are still people,” Diciesare said.

Lauren McGaughy from KUT/The Texas Newsroom gived to this alert.