A federal district court judge has dealt a blow to transgender inmates in Florida by rejecting a request for a preliminary injunction against a new Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) policy.
This ruling allows the FDOC to deny “gender-affirming” medical care to incarcerated individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria and forces transgender women to conform to their male sex assigned at birth.
The Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) issued new guidelines for the mental health treatment of inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which was effective on September 30, 2024.
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The policy ensures that inmates diagnosed with gender dysphoria receive timely and appropriate mental health services tailored to their unique needs. Treatment goals focus on alleviating psychological distress and addressing any co-occurring mental health conditions.
- Therapeutic Approach: Psychotherapy, including individual and group sessions, will be prioritized to help inmates manage distress, adjust to incarceration, and develop coping strategies.
- Evaluation: Inmates will undergo comprehensive psychodiagnostic and psychiatric assessments to confirm the diagnosis and identify other mental health needs.
State law prohibits the use of state funds for cross-sex hormone therapy unless required by the U.S. Constitution or a court order. The FDOC has outlined strict criteria for exceptions:
- Clinical Justification: Treatment must demonstrate clear medical necessity, supported by peer-reviewed research and approved by a multidisciplinary team.
- Informed Consent: Inmates must be fully informed of the risks, irreversible effects, and alternatives to hormone therapy before initiating treatment.
- Monitoring: The necessity of continued hormone therapy will be reviewed regularly, with re-evaluations every 90 to 180 days.
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According to the FDOC policy, if a diagnosis of gender dysphoria is no longer deemed clinically valid, hormone therapy will be tapered off over nine weeks. Mental health services will continue to support the inmate during and after this transition.
The ACLU and the ACLU of Florida filed an emergency lawsuit in October 2024 on behalf of Reiyn Keohane, a transgender woman incarcerated since 2016 who had been receiving gender-affirming care under the previous FDOC policy.
The lawsuit argued that the new policy violates the Eighth Amendment right to medically necessary care. Despite these arguments, the judge denied the preliminary injunction, allowing the FDOC to continue enforcing the new policy.
“Florida officials are waging a baseless campaign to dehumanize and degrade incarcerated people like our client,” said Li Nowlin-Sohl, senior staff attorney at the ACLU’s LGBTQ + HIV Project. “Allowing this policy to move forward threatens the basic human rights of transgender people in the state’s custody and the court’s order today affords the state’s policy more credulity than it deserves when the clear intent of the state is to ban this health care outright.”
The ACLU and its Florida chapter are expected to continue their legal challenge against this policy.
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