The sick minds at the Trump administration’s DOJ have moved to eliminate rules designed to protect LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons.
A memo issued last week said “effective immediately,” prisons and jails will no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to shield LGBTQ+ people from harassment, abuse and rape. The DOJ has also directed inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with the rules.
The Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, directed screenings of those who were likely to face increased risk of sexual assault when placement in housing is considered. The Act applied to all prison facilities.
Regulations that protect LGBTQ+ people from pat searches by staff, including rules meant to ensure trans women can be searched by female officers and regulations to prevent invasive examinations of individuals’ genitals, would also be affected.
The memo from Tammie Gregg, principal deputy director of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, said the policy adjustments were meant to align with Trump’s anti-trans executive orders, “restoring biological truth.”
On Trump’s inauguration day, those orders called for transgender women to be banned from women’s housing in correctional facilities and dictated that the federal Bureau of Prisons stop providing gender-affirming care to incarcerated trans people.
- Earlier this year, some trans women were transferred to men’s prisons, but courts ordered them moved back. Court orders have protected individual plaintiffs, but the majority of trans people in federal custody are housed in facilities that do not match their gender identity.
The human rights group Just Detention International has long trained and audited institutions. Director Linda MacFarlane said the new revisions will cause greater chaos and danger for both prisoners and staff.
“It will allow rapists to act with impunity. And it is already sowing confusion among prison leaders, who have worked for more than a decade to put in place commonsense rules to end prisoner rape … It’s sickening.”