WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Nov. 9 threw out a lower court’s ruling in favor of a transgender woman suing over her treatment at a county jail, directing a new analysis of the case based on the justices'
recent rulings on transgender issues.
Darlene Griffith, who has been living openly as a woman for more than 20 years, alleges her civil rights were violated at the El Paso County Jail while awaiting trail in 2020.
Her complaints include that she was denied a request to be housed in a female unit. As a result, Griffith alleges, she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male inmate and was frequently searched by male deputies.
The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed some of her allegations to proceed, saying they’d passed the "low bar" for surviving the county’s motion to dismiss the case at an early stage of the litigation.
The appeals court emphasized it was not yet weighing in on whether the jail’s policy of housing inmates based on their biological sex is unconstitutional.
The county sheriff appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that prison administrators are being "subject to inconsistent mandates on how to classify and house transgender inmates while maintaining safety and security in their facilities."
The Justice Department urged the justices to direct the appeals court to reconsider the case because the 2025 ruling was issued before recent Supreme Court decisions on two transgender cases. In those major rulings, the court upheld a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors and bans on transgender athletes competing on female teams.
Under that "clear guidance," the Justice Department told the court, the jail’s housing policy cannot be challenged.
Like sports and medicine, prisons are another area where "everyone agrees" that some sex-based classifications are permitted, the department's lawyers wrote.
President Donald Trump last year directed the federal Bureau of Prisons to house inmates based on their biological sex, an order being challenged by incarcerated transgender women.
Although the court has issued multiple rulings against transgender rights in recent years, the justices last month saidthe Trump administration can’t immediately deny gender-affirming care for inmates in federal prisons.
The court declined to allow the administration’s policy to go into effect before a legal challenge plays out.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court orders new look at transgender jail case
