Live from Brooklyn Public Library: The Power of Poetry and Magical Thinking

RICHMOND, Va. -- On Friday, February 28th, the ACLU of North Carolina joined the ACLU Disability Rights Program, Rights Behind Bars, Tycko & Zavareei LLP, and Kaplan & Grady LLC, in filing an appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on behalf of Tracey Edwards. While she was incarcerated in the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women (NCCIW), prison officials abruptly cut off Ms. Edwards' medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) after she gave birth, causing an extremely painful, dangerous, and unnecessary withdrawal. Prison officials also kept Ms. Edwards shackled during and after giving birth – in direct violation of the prison system’s own policy – causing severe pain and interfering with Ms. Edwards’ ability to bond with her newborn child. “People who are incarcerated deserve respect and dignity, as well as safe and responsive medical care,” said D Dangaran, Director of Gender Justice Rights Behind Bars. “By shackling Ms. Edwards during childbirth, keeping her shackled after she gave birth, and cutting off her medication, prison officials needlessly escalated the physical, mental, and emotional harm to Ms. Edwards during a time when she was already vulnerable.” “The use of shackles on Ms. Edwards and the denial of MOUD caused her pain and suffering, and greatly increased the risk of relapse, overdose, and death,” said Shana Khader, partner at Tycko and Zavareei LLP. “Defendants in this case violated medical standards of care as well as Ms. Edwards’ civil rights.” Ms. Edwards brought claims for damages under the Eighth Amendment and federal disability rights laws. The district court ruled against Ms. Edwards. In this appeal, Ms. Edwards seeks to have the district court’s decision reversed so a jury can decide her claims. “The treatment that Ms. Edwards experienced is both inhumane and unconstitutional,” said Joseph Longley, ACLU Disability Rights Program Staff Attorney. “This appeal is about accountability. No one, especially a new mother, should endure such cruel and degrading conditions. And no one should be denied access to their lifesaving medications for opioid use disorder, especially when tens of thousands of Americans are dying of an overdose every year. We are working to ensure Ms. Edwards gets her day in court and that this kind of mistreatment is never repeated.” The brief can be found here: https://www.acluofnorthcarolina.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/2025.02.28_appellants_opening_brief_4th_cir._dkt._23-1.pdf

WASHINGTON – Three transgender people currently incarcerated in federal custody have filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump Administration and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) challenging an Executive Order and new BOP policies prohibiting their access to gender-affirming care. The class action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of approximately 2,000 transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons across the United States. Following a January 20 executive order from President Trump that prohibited gender-affirming medical care for transgender people in federal prisons and immigration detention centers, the BOP instructed federal prisons to cease treatments like hormone replacement therapy previously prescribed by BOP medical providers. BOP also instructed officials to remove any transgender women held in women’s facilities and place them in men’s facilities, an issue under challenge in multiple separate lawsuits. BOP’s new policy also prohibits gender-affirming clothing and commissary items for transgender people, and requires that incorrect pronouns be used. Today’s lawsuit was filed on behalf of two transgender men and one transgender woman serving sentences in facilities in New Jersey, Minnesota, and Florida. All three were diagnosed with gender dysphoria by BOP medical providers and prescribed hormone therapy by health care staff, but have either had their treatments suspended or were told they will be suspended soon. The filing argues this policy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments,” which federal courts have long held includes the denial of medically-necessary health care, including access to gender-affirming care. It also argues that the policy violates the equal protection requirement of the 5th Amendment, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Rehabilitation Act. The case was filed on behalf of the three plaintiffs, and all other transgender people in federal prisons, by the ACLU, the ACLU of DC, and the Transgender Law Center. “Since his first day in office, President Trump has singled out transgender people for discrimination, persecution, and erasure from public life,” said Li Nowlin-Sohl, Senior Staff Attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “This policy injects politics into the provision of health care for people in custody, putting the ideology of the president over the best medical judgement of BOP’s own officials as well as the rights and lives of incarcerated transgender people themselves. Withholding medically-necessary care from anyone in custody is cruel and unusual, and we’re confident the courts will not abide this clear and transparent violation of that principle.” “Courts have held time and again that the Constitution requires that prisons provide incarcerated people with medical and mental health care. President Trump’s executive order categorically banning all gender-affirming care for transgender people in federal prisons is just as unconstitutional as categorically banning chemotherapy for incarcerated cancer patients or insulin for people with diabetes,” said Corene Kendrick, deputy director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “People of all backgrounds, races, and genders know that we all deserve the right to live as our most authentic selves,” said Shawn Meerkamper, Managing Attorney at Transgender Law Center. “This executive order endangers lives and is an attack on the rights and dignity of transgender people everywhere. Denying access to the life-saving health care prescribed by BOP doctors is yet another cruel attempt at further harming and discriminating against transgender people.” “The Trump administration's decision to deny gender-affirming care approved by its own doctors is unconstitutional and part of a broader campaign to push trans people out of public life,” said Michael Perloff, Senior Staff Attorney at ACLU-D.C. “Trans people aren’t pawns in an ideological battle—they’re people who deserve access to critical medical care like everyone else. The Trump administration has reportedly begun instructing BOP officials to ignore previous enforcement of the 2002 Prison Rape Elimination Act and unilaterally re-house transgender women into men’s prisons with the full knowledge of their risk for sexual violence and suicide, as well as confiscate clothing, commissary, items, or other personal items “inconsistent” their sex assigned at birth. A federal judge has since blocked that policy as-applied to the incarcerated transgender women who have brought separate challenges. Of the 155,000 people in federal prisons, just over 2,000 (or 1.2%) are transgender. In December 2024, the Supreme Court held oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a landmark case challenging Tennessee’s categorical ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for transgender youth on the grounds the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating based on sex. The case began when an initial lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on behalf of three transgender adolescents and their families. A decision is expected in June 2025. Thee complaint filed today in Kingdom v. Trump can be found here.

PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Arizona, Prison Law Office, and Disability Rights Arizona asked a federal judge today to appoint a receiver to take over the management of healthcare in Arizona prisons. The request was made in a long-running class action lawsuit originally filed in 2012 on behalf of the nearly 30,000 people incarcerated by the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry (ADCRR). The receiver, an independent authority appointed by the court, would assume control of ADCRR’s medical and mental health care systems and ensure that they meet constitutional standards. The request for receivership follows years of well-documented systemic healthcare failures in Arizona’s prisons, despite multiple court orders and over a decade of litigation. In April 2023, U.S. District Judge Roslyn O. Silver issued a sweeping order acknowledging the failure to provide constitutionally adequate medical care and requiring ADCRR to make substantial changes. Since then, independent experts appointed by Judge Silver have issued multiple reports detailing ADCRR’s failure to comply with the court’s orders or to take necessary actions to remedy the systemic failures, resulting in preventable deaths, permanent injuries, and needless suffering. Corene Kendrick, deputy director at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, had the following statement: “Nearly two years after Judge Silver ordered Arizona officials to make comprehensive improvements to prison medical and mental health care, and over a decade after we filed this case, the state and its for-profit health care vendors have failed to address the avoidable suffering and deaths in their prisons. Appointing a receiver is a rare step reserved for the most extreme situations, but here we are. The stakes are life and death for the people in Arizona prisons not receiving the care they desperately need.” Below are additional statements from: Rita Lomio, senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office: “Judge Silver has described the financial cost of this litigation as ‘astronomical.’ The cost in terms of human suffering and preventable death is incalculable. Federal judges have used almost every tool at their disposal to address the crisis in the Arizona state prisons over the last decade, including millions of dollars in contempt fines, enforcement orders, and appointment of experts. Nothing has worked. The only remaining option with any realistic chance of success is receivership. A receiver can build systems, efficiencies, and competence, with the goal of transferring authority back to the State as soon as possible and finally ending this case.” Maya Abela, deputy legal director at Disability Rights Arizona: “For too long people in ADCRR have been placed at risk of serious harm and death because of the lack of appropriate mental health and medical care. People with disabilities are dying. These conditions must come to an end. The injunction must be implemented so that class members can obtain the relief the court has ordered, and at this stage it is abundantly clear that the action needed to advance this goal is appointment of a receiver.”

Wildfires raging across Greater Los Angeles have revealed that our county and cities are not only under-resourced to combat natural disasters but also ill-prepared to protect people in custody.