“Like a slow death”, a “pawn in others’ political games”: Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite court rulings against Trump order

The Guardian: Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order (2025-03-07) (archive):

The executive order was quickly challenged in court. In three lawsuits filed on behalf of trans women housed in women’s prisons, federal judges have ruled that the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot withhold their medical treatment and was barred from moving them to men’s facilities. One judge said the plaintiffs had “straightforwardly demonstrated that irreparable harm will follow”.

Lawyers fighting Trump’s directive say the court rulings prevented the transfers of 17 trans women who are plaintiffs in the cases, but others not included in the litigation are now facing placements in men’s facilities.

“I’m just continuing to be punished for existing,” said Whitney, a 31-year-old trans woman who was transferred from a women’s facility to a men’s prison this week. The BOP changed her records from “female” to “male”, records show. In messages before her transfer, she said she felt like a “pawn in others’ political games”. The Guardian is not using her full name due to concerns about retaliation.

Kara Janssen, an attorney representing trans women in litigation, said she learned of another trans woman not included in the lawsuits who was recently transferred to a facility that houses men, and also had the gender marker in her records changed. Janssen also learned of a trans woman newly entering the BOP system who had gender-affirming surgeries before her incarceration, but was placed in a men’s facility. […]

Whitney, who was recently transferred, said in interviews prior to her move that staff for weeks gave her conflicting information. In mid-February, she and another trans woman were placed into a form of isolation called a “special housing unit” and told they could be there for months, she said. The other woman attempted suicide out of fear of being transferred, she said.

Days later, the women were moved back to the general population. Whitney’s doctor, however, then told her that her hormone therapy medications would start to be tapered down. Whitney said going off those medications would wreak havoc on her body and mind, describing it “like a slow death”. The doctor also said staff would start using male pronouns for her, though she said that had not happened yet.

Zinnia Jones: Remarks on Trump 2025-03-04 speech to Congress

Zinnia’s commentary and remarks:

— He’s misgendering the trans girl in high school who played volleyball against Payton McNabb, and calling trans women “men”.

Trump:

$8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho which nobody has ever heard of.

— Everyone has heard of Lesotho. He can’t even pronounce it.

Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. … Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229. One person between the age of 240 and 249 — and one person is listed at 360 years of age.

— There’s all sorts of possible reasons those Social Security records are still in that database. Any number of complexities could apply here. He could be listing all sorts of ad hoc edge cases, or odd formatting hacks, that came up in the course of everything all people in the United States can experience across the course of their lives.

Deals are being made — never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it?

— He thinks tariffs are “beautiful”? The markets were a bloodbath today [2025-03-04], yesterday as well.

And Elliston Berry, who became victim of an illicit deepfake image produced by a peer. With Elliston’s help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act.
And this is so important, thank you very much, John [Thune]. … The publication of such images online is terrible, terrible thing. And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing the bill into law. Thank you. And I’m going to use that bill for myself too, if you don’t mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody.

— A disgusting suggestion by Trump that an anti-deepfake law, primarily protecting women targeted by AI creation of pornography, would be necessary to protect him because of how desirable he is, which he is not. The implication diminishes what she has been through, to her face, in front of the country, which is extremely insulting. I am offended deeply on her behalf.

All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murderers…

— Anyone in any group can act heinously, but choosing to dehumanize anyone is a choice that diminishes every one of us.

Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS.

— Terrorism involves attacks on civilians to achieve political aims and send a message. These gangs and cartels are not intending to do so in any of these cited incidents.

— This is all a disgrace, shameful, cowardly, pathetic, small, and utterly chickenhearted.

I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer, and tonight I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.

— He doesn’t specify what degree of murder, or the circumstances. If the accused were 10 miles away, it could be attributed to them as being a murder when an officer is killed by someone else, due a legal mechanism of associated responsibility. This has absolutely happened before. See: “Sentenced to Life for an Accident Miles Away” (The New Yorker, 2023-12-11).

My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools. A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their thirteen-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging their daughter to use a new name and pronouns – they/them pronoun, actually – all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.

— Notably, he’s describing even social, non-medical transitioning as “child abuse” in a national address, suggesting anything other than parental enforcement of stereotypical gender-conforming expression of cisgenderism (as defined by the state) is “child abuse”.

Stories like this are why shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth. And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

— This is notable for the invocation of religion (presumably Christian) as imposing a fundamentally anti-trans and cis-only reality on everyone, which precludes from the outset even the existence of trans people at all. This is the president’s claim that a Christian God has determined everyone will have specifically cis genders, and more broadly, that there is any kind of purpose or teleology in the universe at all.

— It is an assertion that trans people’s genders are against the intentions of an external, higher being. This assertion is baseless; there is no evidence of the proposed being or its intentions; the belief is an individual preference that falls within private practices; it is a matter for interpersonal coexistence within a pluralistic society; and it is not a vision for our secular government to select as its model of reality and then impose on everyone in the country.

As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome missile shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA. And Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago but the technology wasn’t there, not even close, but now we have it

— Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back? Nope! Sorry, Cold War/nuclear strategy/missile defense special interest engaged. This will never happen.

I was saved by God to make America great again, I believe that.

— Anyone can say that about any activity they engage in at any time.

— His vision of God wants nothing more for us than a falsified cisgender fraction-of-a-life, filled with many years of President Donald Trump.

And from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk to the astronauts who touched the moon, Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers…

— He said “transcended all dangers”, but it sounded like “transgendered all dangers”.

We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond.

— Is he suggesting manned spaceflight to the Galilean moons?

And we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in

— A reference to the attempt on his life; a “fight” chant now breaks out.

It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before

— Anyone can say that, but this time, in this context, it seems loaded with threat.

I’m really glad this speech is over!