GLAD Law and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR) are challenging a Trump administration executive order that directs the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to house transgender women in men’s facilities and unlawfully withhold necessary medical care.

We are representing transgender women whose safety and health were under immediate threat from this policy—facing transfer to men’s prisons and having their essential medical care cut off.

We secured preliminary injunction orders preventing our clients in three separate lawsuits—Moe v. Trump, Doe v. Bondi, ak Jones v. Bondi  from being transferred to men’s facilities and ensuring their continued access to necessary medical care.

The Trump administration has appealed those preliminary injunctions to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the three cases have been consolidated for briefing and ruling on this appeal.

We filed our plaintiffs’ response to the government’s appeal on June 30, 2025.

The cases:

The lawsuits challenge the BOP’s implementation of the executive order, which overrides protections in the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) for vulnerable people, including transgender women, and ends all medical care for transgender people who are incarcerated.

As we explain in our filings, these policies are illegal under the Administrative Procedure Act because they are arbitrary and conflict with federal PREA regulations, which require individualized housing decisions based on safety and security—not blanket bans.

The executive order is also unconstitutional. It discriminates against transgender people, violating the Equal Protection Clause, and subjects them to serious harm in violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Learn more about the plaintiffs and progress in the three trial court cases: Moe v. Trump, Doe v. Bondi, ak Jones v. Bondi.