Male Inmates Still Threaten Safety and Dignity of Incarcerated Women

by Meredith Godwin | August 11, 2026 | Culture Sexuality

The United States Justice Department is seeking to transfer every “transgender” man in U.S. prisons to one central, female-only correctional facility in Texas. 

Attorneys from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) have filed a notice of anticipated transfer with intentions to move every male prisoner who identifies as female to a segregated unit within Federal Medical Center (FMC) Carswell – a female-only prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

As of July 2026, 10 men who “identify” as women were incarcerated at FMC Carswell in a separate unit from female inmates. However, some have filed an emergency motion requesting full integration with female prisoners at the facility, threatening the women’s privacy, safety and dignity.

The lawsuit, filed by attorneys at both the National Center for LGBTQ Rights and the LGBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders, alleges:

The Plaintiffs already housed in the segregated unit are suffering severe and escalating harm, including resurgent gender dysphoria, loss of clinical progress achieved over years in general population, deteriorating mental health, and, for at least one Plaintiff, the resurgence of suicidal ideation.

This emergency motion to integrate transgender-identified men at FMC Carswell is the latest development in a long, confusing series of legal disputes over whether men who identify as women belong in female prisons. 

In 2022, a new policy was implemented by the BOP allowing any inmate claiming to be “transgender” to be housed in a prison that correlated with their “gender identity.”

In January 2025, however, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order contains several efforts to protect biological women, including Section 4a, which reads: 

The Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security shall ensure that males are not detained in women’s prisons or housed in women’s detention centers, including through amendment.

Shortly after this order was signed, men identifying as women, who were wrongly housed in female prisons, sued to block the order’s enforcement and their transfer to male prisons. 

In a June 2026 ruling, D.C. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth agreed to halt the transfer of 14 men who identify as women to male prisons, arguing that “[Plaintiffs] are likely to suffer imminent and irreparable harm” if moved to male facilities. 

Judge Lamberth was also involved in previous court orders allowing “transgender” inmates to continue receiving opposite-sex hormones at FMC Carswell.

Mere days before Judge Lamberth’s ruling, Texas Senior District Judge Sidney Fitzwater signed a temporary restraining order segregating the transgender-identified men in FMC Carswell onto a different floor. 

Judge Fitzwater specifically ordered male prisoners not to interact with female inmates and prohibited officials from “housing any male inmate (meaning any inmate who is biologically male, regardless of gender identity) within the general population of any housing unit at FMC Carswell where biological females are present or will be confined during the pendency of this case.”

These opposite rulings each represent attempts to “work around” the implementation of Executive Order 14168. While the BOP and federal judges are scrambling to find housing loopholes that accommodate “transgender” inmates’ mental health concerns, female inmates in facilities such as FMC Carswell are being deprived of their constitutional rights to safety, privacy and dignity. 

Elspeth Cypher, former Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice and President of the Women’s Liberation Front, noted Judge Fitzwater’s segregation ruling originally allowed male inmates at FMC Carswell to share cafeteria and recreation spaces with female inmates. But, Cypher claimed:

The men were angry with the women for complaining about them and so they threatened and harassed the women in those areas. As a result, their recreation time and cafeteria time had to be segregated also.

Despite Cypher’s testimony, the “transgender” inmates’ attorney, Alexander Shalom, argued housing prisoners in a separate unit violates their right to protection from cruel and unusual punishment.

“This is a backdoor attempt to implement the [President’s] Executive Order,” said Shalom. “The conditions are not in any way comparable to a women’s facility.”

While Judge Fitzwater’s segregation ruling was a step in the right direction, Judge Lamberth’s contradictory decision found that integrating male inmates into female spaces poses “no adverse impacts on public safety.” 

Rhonda Fleming, a female inmate at FMC Carswell, however, has filed multiple lawsuits asking that “transgender” inmates be removed from women’s prisons precisely due to personal protection issues. 

Her most recent filing reads: 

Biological, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim women are forced to shower and share other intimate facilities, in violation of their bodily privacy rights, with male inmates.
Many of these male inmates are incarcerated for violent acts against women and children, to include rapists, child molesters, and domestic abusers. The prison officials allow these male inmates to intimidate women in lines for medications, meals, and in assigned cells.

Jeanette Driever, a friend of Flemings who also served time at FMC Carswell, described: 

When they started bringing transgender inmates over it was culture shock for everybody. They’re 100 plus pounds heavier than us, they’re way taller than us, their muscle density is stronger than ours, but behavior-wise they came over controlling, dominant. They wanted us to be submissive to them.

Fleming additionally described that she has been repeatedly exposed to naked men in the prison’s communal toilets and showers, both at FMC Carswell and other U.S. prisons. She said:

You’re expected to shower with them. You’re expected to use the bathroom with them.
When you’re most vulnerable, you’re naked in a shower. There’s no officer monitoring the showers unless some kind of emergency happens, and so at any time, anything can happen to you.

Another female inmate at FMC Carswell, Temesia Green, testified she had been “held in a locked cell, 24 hours a day, with a biological male.” Green continued:

At FMC Carswell … I have felt degraded and humiliated because I have been forced to be naked in the presence of biological male inmates, who were clearly attracted to women.

The women also recalled how most female inmates were uncomfortable due to the males’ presence, yet only a few would “say anything or complain about it because of retaliation.” Driever and Fleming each recalled threats and verbal abuse from male inmates at FMC Carswell, alleging, “[The men said] they were going to beat us up, they were going to target our families.”

In response to one of Fleming’s suits, the warden of the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Tallahassee wrote:

The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) cannot – and will not – risk the safety of transgender individuals, or subject itself to increased litigation, because Plaintiff does not like being housed with someone she views as different than her – a natal male living as a transgender woman, someone she views as “choosing” a contrary gender identity.

Although Fleming and other female inmates from FMC Carswell have since been transferred to other prisons, the BOP’s efforts to fully integrate men into female prisons poses threats for current and future female inmates.

Since “transgender” prison integration policies have been implemented, there have been several reports of sexual assault towards female inmates by men who identify as women in prisons across the United States. Additionally, BOP records show that nearly half of transgender-identified male inmates in women’s prisons are sex offenders. 

Judge Lamberth’s ruling that “the Court finds no adverse impacts on public safety” due to the integration of male and female inmates is obviously incorrect. 

The FMC Carswell website acknowledges the fundamental differences between men and women, stating: 

The Bureau recognizes women have different needs than men. … Women in prison differ from their male counterparts in significant ways. … Therefore, specialized initiatives and programs are offered at female sites which are trauma-informed and address women’s specific sex-based needs.

Housing men alongside female inmates clearly violates “women’s specific sex-based needs” by depriving them of privacy, safety and dignity. Countless incarcerated women are being represented by the bold efforts and testimonies of inmates – like Rhonda Fleming – who are standing up for women’s constitutional rights for protection against cruel and unusual punishment. 

Integrating “transgender” men into women’s prisons cannot and should not be tolerated. Women everywhere deserve better.

Related Articles and Resources:

WATCH: Cruel and Unusual Punishment in Women’s Prison

New Docuseries Paints Chilling Picture of Women Forced to Live with Men in Prison

Male Offenders Harm Dozens of Female Inmates in Women’s Prison

Violent Male Offender Beats Up Female Inmate in Women’s Prison

A Man Conned His Way Into A Women’s Prison. Now, Officials Can’t Make Him Leave.

Justice Barrett Crucially Explains Why ‘Transgenderism’ is Not a Special Class

How ‘Pride’ 2026 Showed That the LGBT Movement Is Imploding

Transgender Resources

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