By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -A U.S. judge has temporarily blocked federal prison officials from transferring a transgender woman to a men’s facility and denying her access to gender-affirming care in accordance with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump, her lawyers said on Thursday.
The temporary restraining order was issued by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston on Sunday while the inmate’s case was sealed in what appeared to be the first lawsuit challenging an order Trump signed on his first day back in office on Jan. 20, targeting what he called “gender ideology extremism.”
Trump’s order directed the federal government to only recognize two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female; house transgender women in men’s prisons; and cease funding for any gender-affirming medical care for inmates.
The lawsuit was filed on Sunday and was soon after sealed. The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, lifted the seal on Thursday as a hearing was underway on whether he should grant the inmate, known by the pseudonym Maria Moe, further relief.
Her case was filed by lawyers at two LGBTQ rights groups including GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders, or GLAD, which after the case was unsealed confirmed that O’Toole had on Sunday issued a temporary restraining order that will remain in place while he considers whether to issue a longer-lasting injunction.
Amanda Johnston, a GLAD spokesperson, said the order “requires them to keep our client in general population in a women’s facility and to maintain her medical care.”
The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chris Reese and Bill Berkrot)
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