President Trump’s Executive Order calling for incarcerated transgender women to be housed in men’s prisons and halting gender-affirming medical care for prisoners has put one of the most vulnerable segments of the prison population in even greater danger. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host Mansa Musa investigates the violent realities trans inmates face in the US prison system, and the impact that Trump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ rights is having inside prisons.
Guest(s):
- Dee Deidre Farmer, Executive Director of Fight4Justice. In 1994, Farmer’s landmark Supreme Court case, the unanimous Farmer v. Brennan decision, established that prisoners have a right to be protected from harm and that prisons are responsible for their safety.
- Ronnie L. Taylor, Advocacy, Policy, & Partnerships Director of FreeState Justice in Maryland.
Additional resources:
- Amy Harman, The New York Times, “Judge blocks Trump effort to end treatment for transgender inmates”
- Kaley Johnson & Sam Levin, The Guardian, “Trans women transferred to men’s prisons despite rulings against Trump’s order”
Credits:
Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino
Transcript
Mansa Musa: According to The Guardian, transgender women are being sent back to male prisons under an executive order issued by President Donald Trump. A recent report from Democracy Now stated that 17 transgender women have coverage under a lawsuit they filed, but the remaining transgender population has been sent back. They are suffering horrible abuse in the form of rape by the male population and from the prison guards.
The impact of this decision can be seen in the segment of this transgender population that doesn’t have coverage. More importantly, we can see the impact that this decision is having on the prison population in general. What do you think? Should an executive order supersede a court order where multiple court decisions said transgender women should remain in the population where they are? Or should an executive order supersede that, regardless of the court?
To learn more about trans women and the LBGT community’s resistance, I spoke with Deidre Farmer, who in the mid ’90s, filed a historical lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons because of their complicity in allowing rape to exist in all prisons they govern. Out of this lawsuit came PREA: Prison Rape Elimination Act. It became policy and it became law, throughout the prisons and throughout America.
Deidre Farmer: I’m Deidre Farmer, I’m the Executive Director at Fight for Justice. I was incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons for a total of about 25-30 years. I brought the first transgender case accepted and decided by the US Supreme Court; In that case, Farmer V. Brennan, the US Supreme Court said that prison officials can be held liable for the sexual assault of other inmates when they knowingly place inmates at risk of danger. I am currently working with several organizations on cases that challenge the executive orders issued by Donald Trump regarding transgender people in prison as well as in the military.
Mansa Musa: Talk about how this suit came into existence and, more importantly, why?
Deidre Farmer: I entered the Bureau of Prisons as a teenager, and when I was 19-20 years old, I was transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Terre Haute. I had never been in a penitentiary environment before and did not know what to expect. I was in the prison system at Terre Haute for about a week when an inmate came into my cell with a knife and demanded that I have sex with him, and when I refused, he beat me up and raped me. Then, a number of his homeboys or guys that he associated with held me hostage in the cell for a day or two.
I ended up in protective custody, and I had already started studying law and spending time in the library. When you’re in the segregation unit, you find other people who have had the same experience. They weren’t necessarily transgender people; some of them may have been LGBTQ or young guys who were vulnerable, or other people viewed them as weak. When I was transferred from Terre Haute, this is something that continued to play on my mind because I knew people, like me, went into protective custody, and therefore, the prison officials knew what was happening in the population, but weren’t doing anything about it.
So I brought a suit claiming that when prison officials know that you are at risk of danger, assault, or rape, they can be sued for it. The District Court and the Court of Appeals did not agree with me, but the US Supreme Court accepted the case. I wrote the petition on my own and filed it on my own, and they accepted it. Then a friend of mine, who was an attorney at the ACLU National Prison Project, represented me in the Supreme Court. Of course, the court held that if you can prove they knew – Because of the environment or previous incidents – Then you can sue them.
Mansa Musa: Out of this litigation came what is now commonly known as PREA: Prison Rape Elimination Act. Based on this advocacy in the prison system right now, it’s a policy that they have an autonomous system set up where prisoners can complain about being sexually mistreated. We know this is a fact that PREA exists throughout the system – Federal Bureau, federal, state, and county jails, city jails – It exists.
The president issued this order and according to it, all transgender people are to be sent back to the institutions that they’ve been identified by their original sexual origin; If it’s a male that’s transgender and he’s in a female prison, according to Donald Trump, he going to be sent back to a male prison and vice versa. Talk about the impact that’s going to have on the transgender population in general and on the prison population overall.
Deidre Farmer: What you’re doing is sanctioning the death of transgender people, whether they are transgendered or otherwise, they are still human beings and we should not be subjecting them to death because they do not conform to what our ideology of human beings should be. In my case, the Supreme Court recognized that people with certain vulnerabilities, including gender dysphoria or being transgender, are vulnerable in certain populations.
After my case, there were many studies done. Consequently the US Congress took the issue up and enacted the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is supposed to have zero tolerance for rape in prisons. As the Supreme Court said, rape is not part of the sentence. Congress recognized from many, many hearings and testimonies from women, young people, disabled people, mentally challenged people, gender-conflicted people who were sexually assaulted in prison or in jail, and consequently implemented PREA, which is a nationwide standard. It does not create legal rights, but if you violate it, you can lose federal funding.
The executive orders that Trump has issued totally ignore what the Supreme Court has said, totally ignore what the US Congress has said, and what Trump is saying. Despite the vulnerabilities that you have, you’re going back into that environment, despite the knowledge that you will be raped, despite the knowledge that the person who raped you might kill you so that you cannot tell. This is not an ideology, this is not a presumption; This is something that happens and has happened.
Now, for transgender people who remain in facilities consistent with their biological gender, it is happening. To say that you will take an incarcerated transgender woman who has had vaginoplasty and has a vagina and place her into a male institution, it’s the same as placing a woman in there and to place a person at that risk, it’s inhumane.
Mansa Musa: In Baltimore, I spoke to Ronnie Taylor, a policy advocate with Free State Justice, about the adversities facing the LGBTQ community in its current political climate. Also, we talked about the historical activism of the LGBTQ community.
Ronnie Taylor: Thank you for having me. Ronnie Taylor, as you said, pronouns are she/her. I serve as the Advocacy, Policy, and Partnerships Director here at Free State. We are the oldest LGBT organization providing legal services, resources, advocacy, and education in the state of Maryland. And we’re the only… We call ourselves “Maryland’s LGBTQ+ advocates.”
Mansa Musa: I was looking at some of y’all’s accomplishments. Y’all have been given numerous awards, but more importantly, y’all had a bill passed to deal with marriage. Talk about that.
Ronnie Taylor: Absolutely. We were born out of the merger of Equality Maryland, for those who are familiar with that. We became the Free State Legal Project and then Free State Maryland. Equality Maryland passed the Same-Sex Marriage Act numerous years ago, and it was such an accomplishment for Maryland, so we wanted to figure out how we can continue to position ourselves as advocates.
Unfortunately, when the doors closed at Equality Maryland, Free State Legal Project continued to work when it comes to our advocacy portions, and we’ve been continuing to do that. We have some amazing legislative wins, such as the Trans Health Equity Act. This recent year, we passed the Carlton R. Smith Jr. HIV Modernization Act. The awards are great, and it’s great to be recognized, but we’re going to continue to do the work for Marylanders.
Mansa Musa: In the 2024 presidential campaign, Kamala Harris was being denigrated for providing or signing off on the legislation to allow transgender people to have a sex change according to their orientation. The President of the US and the Republican Party had a campaign ad; In the campaign ad, they were promoting this as something inhuman and immoral, with the way they were representing the person who was getting their sex changed, they had them looking almost monstrous. Talk about the impact that is having on the transgender community right now.
Ronnie Taylor: Those acts that have come into place and how it is crucial to our current standing Marylanders, I pride myself in saying that, on a local level, we have a great partner in our Governor Wes Moore. However, federally, we are under attack, and that attack has looked a variety of ways. Military personnel, folks, and particularly trans folks who have been serving in the military for numerous years–
Mansa Musa: –An honorable mention.
Ronnie Taylor: An honorable mention. –To have their careers taken away for an oath that they took to protect this country is inhumane in regards to our prison systems. The Prison Rape Elimination Act is a thing, and to say we’re going to put folks in cells and disregard medical procedures and stating that you are trans, it’s simply an attack. Furthermore, there have been numerous things this party has done; There have been over 886 pieces of legislation introduced by the Federal Administration, for the attack on transgender individuals.
Mansa Musa: This is outstanding because you put all that time and energy into trying to have a moral agenda over people’s lives, but at the same token you are a convicted felon, you paid off Stormy Daniels for lewd lascivious behavior towards her, but you turned around and now you want to become the moral cop of people’s lives. Talk about the impact this is having on the transgender community and y’all’s ability to raise funds.
Ronnie Taylor: It’s hard. Funding is at an ultimate halt right now for a lot of organizations, including mine. If you put terms such as “DEI” or “community,” which our federal government is trying to eliminate, it puts us in a tricky situation. Thankfully, we’ve been able to diversify our funding tools, as I’m in charge of that portfolio, and be able to still do the work. But it’s challenging because we don’t want to get rid of our moral compass, and we refuse to.
We’re going to continue to do the work, but we find ourselves in a position in which the Federal Administration has proven they do not want to be a partner in this work. Thankfully, we have a great federal delegation in Maryland that’s going to continue to do the work and put forth legislation to combat that hate and that anti-stuff, but it’s still there and it’s impacting everyday lives. It’s affecting people’s housing, their mental health, their ability to work, and so forth and so on.
Mansa Musa: We interviewed a transgender female that was responsible for PREA, Prison Rape and Enforcement Act, and she was saying that right now it looks like it’s an all-out assault on transgender men or women in prison based on the fact that the president has put an executive order out saying that you’re going to be transferred to the prison of your assigned gender as opposed to your current gender. Talk about that if you can.
Ronnie Taylor: I couldn’t agree with her more. It’s definitely an overall attack. It’s an agenda, it’s an attack. One of the things that I often remind people in my advocacy work here is our current president; I use that term loosely. These are executive orders. This person has done nothing but sign executive orders throughout his time throughout this term. There have not been any laws. The reality is there’s still a chance to work and get things done on a local level: Now is the time, more than ever. The primary general elections are coming up. We need folks to get on the race for 2026. There are local elections, and do the work because it can be done.
Overall, you need to hold your elected officials to the responsibility. When they took that oath to serve in Annapolis or serve in whatever state house you elected them to be in, to do the work of all Marylanders. It’s inhumane. Trans people are a part of the political, socioeconomic living sphere that we all exist in. This attack on said sub-community is horrendous, and there absolutely needs to be something done about it.
Mansa Musa: This government is taking a conservative approach. Like I said, we went back through the military, don’t ask, don’t tell, but now they have an executive order around that. The Secretary of Defense issued a memorandum about that, their prison, and they’re taking federal funds from anyone under our species of DEI. But they’re primarily saying that if you’re transgender, then you don’t have an arm or leg to stand on. Why do you think they’re having such a conservative attitude towards this particular sub-community?
Ronnie Taylor: Great question. We have to highlight that folks from both sides of the aisle are trans. Elon Musk’s daughter is a woman of trans experience, but she’s not often talked about. She’s been pushed underneath a carpet, and it’s again, rooted in ignorance.
Mansa Musa: What do you want our viewers to know about the transgender community? More importantly, speak to them about what transgender means to you and what it should mean to society, because we live in a society that’s supposed to be equal. We say we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are treated equally and have available rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If your life is at jeopardy, your liberty is at jeopardy, and therefore you ain’t going to have any pursuit of happiness. Talk about why we should be looking at this issue and be critical of this administration as it relates to their attitude towards people.
Ronnie Taylor: Yeah. One of the things I often say is that trans people, since the beginning of time, have done an amazing body of work, and our portfolio shows that. Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera stood on the front lines of the Stonewall Movement, and they threw the first brick. That’s not something that we talk about. Trans people are elected officials; We have precious Brandi Davis down in the South, we have Andrea Jenkins in the Midwest, we have Sarah McBride, our first congresswoman.
Folks are capable and willing to do the work, but we refuse to be ostracized. What it means to me, and thank you for asking me that question, I have prided myself and it’s often a label that I wear with pride and I introduce myself and my pronouns and say, “I’m a woman of trans experience,” because I refuse to dim that light in the work that I’m doing.
We’re in advocacy spaces, we’re in policy spaces, we are in all of the spaces. It’s ultimately the education that gets into it. There are some of us who are willing to do our trans one-on-one conversations with you, but you have to come to the table with a willingness to learn. Oftentimes, our political landscape has shown that it’s okay to be disrespectful and neglectful of said communities, but there is some work to be done.
Mansa Musa: There you have it. The Real News, Rattling the Bars. The transgender community is here to stay. We’re not trying to make any excuse for it, but they’re human beings like us. The only problem we have with this whole issue is that someone thinks they have the moral compass to determine who should have a quality life versus whose life should be treated differently. This country prides itself on equality, and we are saying that equality is paramount when it comes to recognizing the transgender community and all the accomplishments they have made.
These stories about the LGBT community and transgender individuals and their rights to be treated as human beings are something that Rattling the Bars believes should be brought front and center. This is about humanity. This is not about a person’s preference or sexual orientation; This is about people being treated like humans. At Rattling the Bars, we believe that these stories, when you look at them and evaluate them, will give you a sense of understanding about humanity. We ask that you continue to look at Rattling the Bars, and we ask that you give your views. Tell us what you think about these stories because it’s your views that give us content and context for our next story.
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