A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order separating transgender inmates from female detainees at a Texas correctional facility for women with special needs, following claims of sexual abuse allegedly committed by some of the biological men housed there.
Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater, a Reagan appointee, ruled last week that any transgender biological man at Federal Medical Center-Carswell, a women’s prison in Fort Worth for female inmates primarily suffering from medical and mental health problems, who shares living quarters with two female plaintiffs in a civil rights case must be housed separately, either “reassigned away” or in placed a “secure, segregated” unit within FMC Carswell.
The men are all also temporarily prohibited from accessing female-designated private spaces, such as showers, restrooms, changing areas, and dormitories, according to a copy of the court order obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Wednesday’s order marks one of the first judicial actions enforcing separation by biological sex, although it represents a narrow, procedural victory in the early stages of litigation over President Donald Trump’s transgender policies. The Trump administration has suffered multiple setbacks in lower courts over efforts to limit the government’s recognition of gender to biological sex. However, it has seen some success at the Supreme Court.
Rhonda Ann Fleming, a longtime litigant fighting the infiltration of men in women’s prisons, is spearheading the lawsuit to get the biological men out of FMC Carswell altogether.
“I can’t sleep at night worrying about my safety and that of disabled women and the mentally ill,” Fleming, 60, told the Washington Examiner.
