Opinions

Editorial | Placing trans women in men’s prisons is a death sentence

Among the 26 executive orders Donald Trump signed on the first day of his term was the order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This ordered the federal government to recognize only two genders, male and female, determined by their sex organs at conception — which do not exist.

Trump, of course, does not care about semantics. He cares about punishing the millions of transgender people in this country. While the order represents a very unfortunate step back in visibility for trans and intersex people, it will directly and drastically increase the suffering of those already suffocating under the government’s boot — prison inmates.

The order calls to halt gender-affirming healthcare to transgender prison inmates and to move trans women inmates to men’s prisons. This will not “defend women.” It will let them be raped, and it will let them be killed.

In case there’s any question of Donald Trump’s intentions in moving these women to men’s prisons, he writes very explicitly that in order to transfer these prisoners, there must be an “amendment, as necessary, of Part 115.41 of Title 28.” Part 115 of Title 28 is the Prison Rape Eliminations Act, and Section 115.41 details “Screening for risk of victimization and abusiveness.” 

An amendment to this Act is in the most literal sense an amendment to rape prevention — an amendment to specifically remove protections for transgender women. Trans people experience sexual assault at a far higher rate than the rest of the population, and the purpose of Part 115.41 of Title 28 is to take that information into account to minimize sexual abuse in prisons.

This order is in clear violation of the Eighth Amendment. To intentionally subject a prison demographic to sexual and physical abuse is not only cruel, not only unusual, but blatantly inhumane. In the face of over 100 yearly prison murders and tens of thousands of yearly reports of sexual victimization, the leader of our country wants to raise the numbers. 

The mask of “defending women” should not fool anyone. This is a campaign against the millions of trans people in our nation. It is a campaign to criminalize a demographic and remove protections for the criminals. If a man condones sexual abuse, befriends sexual abusers and has a history of sexual abuse himself, then it was probably never about defending women.

The silver lining is that some of these terms are still up in the air or need approval or policy change. The Bureau of Prisons has not yet commented on the movement of prisoners despite reports from the ACLU. The worst may be near, but it is not yet here. There is still time to make change.

You probably know someone who is transgender, whose life may be changed by this administration. They are in your friend group, your classes or your department’s faculty. Speak out for them and for the people like them facing a harrowing new reality in the American prison system. Every human being deserves to live with safety and dignity, no matter what our president orders.

The Pitt News editorial is a weekly article written by the opinions editors in collaboration with all other desk editors. It reflects the collective opinion of the current Pitt News editorial staff.

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