Despite the fact of incidents of rape and female prisoners being impregnated by trans inmates, a Democrat-appointed judge has ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to individuals with gender dysphoria, meaning transgender people will now be protected by the ADA and will be allowed to stay alongside female prison inmates.
The ruling opens up the possibility of future cases using the ADA to require prisons to allow biological males into women’s prisons if they identify as transgender, although it remains unclear whether that or another accommodation would be required.
“The relevant question then becomes, ‘Is access to opposite-sex spaces a reasonable accommodation for GD?’ … The more justifiable accommodation for GD would be private/separate accommodation”, Candice Jackson, former assistant secretary of education for civil rights, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
A Democrat-appointed federal judge opened the door to allowing more males to be housed in women’s prisons by ruling that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) covers people with gender dysphoria.
Kesha Williams, a biologically male former inmate who identifies as a transgender woman, sued several people associated with the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center in Virginia for allegedly violating the ADA in their decision to house Williams with men, according to court documents. Judge Diana Gribbon Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, sided with Williams and rejected a lower court’s dismissal of the initial lawsuit.
Candice Jackson, attorney and former assistant US secretary of education for civil rights, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it was unclear how this decision would play out in practice, explaining that the ADA requires reasonable accommodations for disabilities, but not necessarily the accommodations an individual want.
“Recognition of gender dysphoria as a disability under the ADA is not inherently problematic; depending on the severity of distress and how it manifests, objectively GD can be easily seen as a disability on par with any number of other conditions”, she told the DCNF.
“The relevant question then becomes, ‘Is access to opposite-sex spaces a reasonable accommodation for GD?’ There are many reasons to argue against that, because usually an accommodation can’t harm or violate the rights of others and still be considered reasonable”, she said. “The more justifiable accommodation for GD would be private/separate accommodation”.
The prison has a policy of housing inmates with male genitals in the men’s section; Williams was initially placed in the women’s section until a medical evaluation determined that the men’s facility would be more appropriate, according to the lawsuit. Williams allegedly experienced harassment from men while in prison and didn’t have consistent access to hormonal medications used in the sex-change process, which the lawsuit described as a treatment for gender dysphoria.
Williams served six months at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center after confessing to playing a role in a drug deal, according to The Washington Post.
Gender dysphoria is the sense of discomfort with one’s biological sex and body which leads some individuals to identify as transgender; not everyone with gender dysphoria goes on to identify as transgender, and not all transgender people pursue medical interventions to present as the opposite sex. Transgender activists argue that these drugs may help prevent suicide for people with gender dysphoria, although studies on “gender-affirming” drugs generally struggle with serious methodological issues such as lack of control groups and inability to determine causality, multiple DCNF investigations have earlier found.
