Will Fritz  |  May 11, 2021

Category: Legal News

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The District of Columbia is being sued over a policy that has allegedly kept a transgender woman in jail facilities that do not align with her gender.

The ACLU of the District of Columbia announced Tuesday morning, May 11, that it and the district’s Public Defender Service had filed a class action lawsuit in federal court to stop the DC Department of Corrections from housing Plaintiff Sunday Hinton in the men’s unit at the DC Jail.

Hinton was taken into the custody of the district’s Department of Corrections on April 26 and despite informing officials of her identity as a trans woman, she was automatically assigned to a men’s housing facility where she remains more than two weeks later, according to the lawsuit.

“All Hinton’s requests to be transferred to the women’s unit have been ignored. This is a CLEAR violation of her rights under the Constitution and the D.C. Human Rights Act,” the ACLU-DC wrote as part of a series of tweets Tuesday. “‘I would like to be housed in a general population women’s unit because I am a transgender woman and identify as a woman.’ Those are Sunday’s words, and it should be as simple as that.’”

The class action lawsuit states the DC Department of Corrections’ policy is to house inmates based on their anatomy, unless the department’s Transgender Housing Committee recommends otherwise and their recommendation is approved by the jail’s warden. However, the Transgender Housing Committee has not met since January 2020, the class action alleges.

“Functionally, then, for the past 16 months, transgender individuals in DOC’s custody have been assigned housing based solely on their anatomy. DOC’s Office of the General Counsel has confirmed that the policy is now applied in this matter,” the lawsuit states. “Furthermore, even when the THC does meet, it is not clear that the THC can actually override the DOC’s presumptive placement based on anatomy.”

The class action, which calls the Department of Corrections’ policy “demeaning,” claims that in addition to being illegal, it “exposes transgender individuals to a heightened risk of sexual violence.”

Hinton is seeking immediate, emergency relief to prevent the Department of Corrections from housing her in the men’s unit. She is also seeking a court order to stop the department’s policy of housing a proposed Class of all other transgender inmates based by default on anatomy regardless of gender identity, require the department to give all transgender individuals a prompt hearing with the Transgender Housing Committee, and require the department to implement the committee’s recommendations “so that each person is housed as safely as possible and without discrimination.”

Have you or someone you know ever been subject to laws or policies that have categorized your gender in a way that does not align with your identity? Let us know in the comments below.

The plaintiff is represented by Scott Michelman, Megan Yan, Marietta Catsambas, Arthur B. Spitzer, and Michael Perloff of the ACLU of the District of Columbia; and Rachel Cicurel and Steven Marcus of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia.

The District of Columbia Department of Corrections Transgender Housing Policy Class Action Lawsuit is Sunday Hinton, et. al v. District of Columbia, Case No. 1:21-cv-01295 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

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