President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday barring biological males — who account for 15% of inmates in women’s federal prisons — from occupying women’s federal detention facilities.
The order, which prohibits federal funds for gender transition medical procedures, drugs and treatment, mandates that the federal government only recognize male and female sexes and requires inmates to be housed according to their biological sex. Of the 10,047 total inmates in women’s federal facilities, 1,538 are biological males, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
“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,” the order reads. It adds that no federal funds shall be expended for “any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”
The order also reversed the past policy of allowing biological males into ostensibly “single-sex” domestic abuse shelters for women and mandated that government-issued identification reflect the bearer’s biological sex — meaning no “X” marker designating an undefined or unlisted gender will be recognized.
The Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group, celebrated the end of what it called “utter unfairness of allowing men into women’s spaces.”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) decried the order as “a plan to erase transgender people’s existence under the law.”
Several pro-LGBT advocacy organizations, such as Lambda Legal, have already signaled an intention to mount a legal challenge against the executive order, arguing it is unconstitutional and violates existing law.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz grilled Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn for allowing a biological male — and convicted serial child rapist — into women’s facility in May, accusing Netburn of being “willing to subjugate the rights of individuals to satisfy your political ideology.”
Several incidents of rape and sexual assault involving biological male inmates in female facilities have surfaced in recent years. A biological male at Rikers Island in New York City was convicted in 2022 of raping a female inmate while housed in the women’s prison wing. A similar case occurred in 2024, where another biological male was convicted in California of raping a female inmate in the showers of the prison’s female facilities.
It is unclear when the transfer of biological men to men’s prison facilities will begin.
Featured Image Credit: USDOJ Office of the Inspector General
