Trans Prisoners Say Trump’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care Could Be Deadly
“I’d rather not live than be forced to live as a man,” a trans woman in a federal prison in New Jersey said in a sworn statement.
For the last nine years, Alishea Sophia Kingdom, a transgender woman, has received hormone therapy. In January, prison staff abruptly stopped her medication, causing her to become hopeless and suicidal.
“The distress of losing my care has caused me to experience anxiety, panic attacks, and mood swings, and I have been unable to sleep,” she said in a statement. “I frequently find myself thinking, I would rather not live than be forced to live as a man.”
On Monday night, her statement was submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, as part of a class action lawsuit filed earlier this month by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center. The civil rights groups are challenging President Trump’s executive order banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender people locked up in federal prisons and immigration detention facilities. The order also requires the BOP to house trans women in men’s prisons. Approximately, 2,000 people incarcerated in federal prisons are transgender.
The Bureau of Prison’s memoranda on how to implement Trump’s executive order prevents transgender people from purchasing or wearing gender-affirming clothing, and prohibits staff from using a transgender person’s correct pronouns. It also states that only male staff can conduct pat-downs of transgender women prisoners.
Yesterday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Transgender Law Center asked the court to order a preliminary injunction to temporarily bar enforcement of the executive order and halt implementation of the memoranda. A Department of Justice spokesperson told The Appeal in an email that, “This Department has vigorously defended President Trump’s executive actions, including the Defending Women Executive Order, and will continue to do so.”
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Former BOP official and psychologist Cathy Thompson warned the court that Trump’s executive order could have catastrophic consequences.
“[D]enying hormone therapy and access to other accommodations and treatments for gender dysphoria will bring about the return of the dysphoric symptoms, potentially causing attempts to self-castrate, self-harm, suicide, and aggression,” she said in a statement. “[W]ith BOP’s staffing crisis, there simply are not enough clinicians to manage the increased suicide watches and crisis, which could be deadly.”
Kingdom is incarcerated in FCI Fairton, a men’s medium security prison in New Jersey. She says that Trump’s executive order has ushered in devastating policy changes.
According to Kingdom, the prison now allows male guards to conduct visual and pat-down searches of trans women. Staff has also started misgendering people, “saying that under the EO [executive order] they are not allowed to use female pronouns for transgender women.”
She says all books with LGBTQ+ themes have been removed from the prison library. When Kingdom asked an administrator about this, he allegedly told her that the prison cannot “‘promote’ anything dealing with LGBTQ+ identity.”
Last year, the Transgender Executive Council began evaluating Kingdom’s request for gender-affirming surgery before BOP the committee in January.
“I was due to be further evaluated for surgical treatment for my gender dysphoria this March 2025, but with the shutdown of the TEC, there is now no avenue for me to continue,” she told the court. “This causes me extreme distress.”
Kingdom says she has considered castrating herself.
Another plaintiff in the case, Solo Nichols, says he began hormone therapy in 2021, while he was incarcerated, but he has known he was male since he was a child.
“I was in fifth grade the first time I confidently told a friend that I was a boy,” he said in a statement. “As I grew, my gender dysphoria started causing depression and anxiety. I felt invisible, small, inadequate, mentally and physically weak.”
Nichols is still receiving hormone therapy, but prison staff told him that will soon end. He no longer has access to chest binders, boxers, and men’s hygiene products.
“Being on testosterone has made me feel ‘normal’ for the first time in my life,” he told the court. “I am very scared to live without testosterone hormone therapy. It feels like who I am and all of the progress I’ve made is being taken from me, and I feel extremely anxious.”