Editor: Trans women in federal custody being moved to men’s prisons would be absolutely devastating and dangerous. This is so important and I’m grateful to The Intercept for covering it. This clearly highlights the issue of politicians legislating things they do not understand. I have heard so many people on the right say that “transgender” means “men pretending to be women” and vice versa. It’s frustrating and sad that so many Americans hate vulnerable groups of people based on lies they are told by their politicians and because they don’t know what they’re talking about. The saying “People hate what they don’t understand” has never been more spot-on than it is in this moment.
Last Friday afternoon, Kara Sternquist, a trans woman in custody at a federal women’s prison in Fort Worth, Texas, was taken from her unit. A guard told Sternquist that she had an unexpected psychiatric appointment in the chapel.
“She was lied to,” said Deviant Ollam, a friend who speaks with her regularly by phone. “Once she was away from everyone else, they took her.”
According to Ollam, Sternquist told him that she is one of almost a dozen trans women who have been taken from the general population at FMC Carswell and moved into an administrative segregation unit that is typically used for inmates on suicide watch. (The Intercept has been unable to reach Sternquist directly, and an official at FMC Carswell declined to answer questions when reached by phone on Monday.)
The women were told they would be moved to a men’s prison, Ollam said, under President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order, which directs the Bureau of Prisons to ensure “that males are not detained in women’s prisons” and that inmates don’t receive gender-affirming health care using federal funds. On Monday, Trump issued another bigoted order barring trans people from military service, which was quickly challenged in federal court.
Trans women who are forced to live in men’s prison facilities face disproportionate risk of sexual assault and violence, as the Bureau of Prisons’ manual on trans inmates, issued in 2022, acknowledges.
On Tuesday afternoon, a warden unexpectedly told Sternquist she could return to her unit for now, Ollam told The Intercept. “She’s still very worried but optimistic,” Ollam said after he got off the phone with her.
Sternquist’s four-day ordeal and ongoing uncertainty about where she will serve the rest of her sentence reflects the precarious position of hundreds of trans people in federal prisons, who are being targeted by Trump and his hard-right allies.
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