Oregon resists court order for housing trans prisoners amid federal pressure
As the Trump administration investigates states for incarcerating transgender women in women’s prisons, Oregon attorneys are opposing a recent federal court order that could lead to more trans women being housed in the state’s only women’s prison.
Over the past few weeks, lawyers representing two incarcerated transgender women and the Oregon Department of Corrections have been filing dueling court motions after an initial April ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke. Clarke granted class action status and a preliminary injunction in favor of the women, who alleged that the Oregon Department of Corrections failed to house them with other women and subjected them to consistent sexual abuse, retaliation and violence during their time in custody with men.
Clarke also mandated that the agency provide a “a presumption of placement consistent with each woman’s gender identity absent a documented and articulable security justification,” which could be implemented through training, housing transfers and “creative” alternatives.
“The court is not naive: housing someone with a complicated status of both ‘vulnerable’ and ‘aggressive’ is extremely challenging,” Clarke wrote in his 38-page order. “However, the continued placement of a victimized transgender woman in a men’s prison is undeniably different treatment than the treatment received by cisgender women, whose placement in a men’s facility is never an option, regardless of their history of violence or sexual aggression.”
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2026/06/11/repub/oregon-resists-court-order-for-housing-trans-prisoners-amid-federal-pressure/