On May 19, 2026, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth renewed a preliminary injunction in Doe v. Blanche, barring the government from implementing Sections 4(a) and 4(c) of Executive Order 14168 against any plaintiff from May 21 to June 8, 2026. The order required the Bureau of Prisons to keep the plaintiffs in women's facilities and to continue their gender dysphoria treatment as it existed immediately before January 20, 2025.
Executive Order 14168 directs the federal government to recognize only sex assigned at birth and orders the attorney general to ensure that “males are not detained in women's prisons.” The case began in January 2025 with three transgender women in federal custody and has since been consolidated with related suits, with many more plaintiffs.
The renewal filled a gap. On April 17, the D.C. Circuit vacated the part of Lamberth's earlier injunction covering transfers and sent the case back for individual findings on each plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claim, but its mandate would not issue until June 8, while the existing injunction would expire on May 20. According to the order, the Justice Department would not agree in writing to refrain from transferring the plaintiffs to men's facilities in the meantime, and argued for the first time that the court lacked jurisdiction. Lamberth found that he had jurisdiction and canceled an emergency hearing.
New filings described what the plaintiffs said they had endured in men's prisons. According to their attorneys, a plaintiff identified as Amy said she was violently gang raped and assaulted by three incarcerated men and had been sexually assaulted in every men's facility where she had been housed. Another, Carla, said she was physically assaulted by gang members, and a third, Donna, said she was raped in a men's prison and later subjected to repeated harassment and threats.
Update (October 2, 2026): On June 7, after making the individual findings the D.C. Circuit required, Lamberth issued a new preliminary injunction for 14 named plaintiffs running from June 8 to September 6, ordering that they remain in women's facilities. He wrote that “it is fundamentally unreasonable for prison officials to respond to serious risks such as mental health deterioration, self-harm, and suicidality by intentionally creating those risks and offering to treat them after they predictably occur.” In late July, the plaintiffs' lawyers argued that the government violated that order by moving several of them into a segregated unit at a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. “You're violating my order, aren't you?” Lamberth asked a Justice Department lawyer at a July 29 hearing, according to AP. The orders protect the named plaintiffs; they do not strike down the executive order nationwide.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry dated the ruling to May 20; Lamberth signed the order on May 19, and the date is corrected. It said the case was brought by three transgender women, Amy, Carla and Donna; the case began with three plaintiffs but now has many, and those names are pseudonyms of some of them. It attributed the gang-rape account to “the court record”; the account comes from the plaintiffs' filings as described by their attorneys. The title said the judge cited those accounts, but the May 19 order rested on preserving the status quo until the appeals court's mandate issued, so the title was revised.