Cruel and Unusual? The Legal Battle Over Sex-Segregated Prisons and the Eighth Ammendments
Originally Published on Townhall
“Kamala is for they/them.”
That line, part of an ad by President Trump’s campaign during the 2024 campaign, was viral in its reach and brutally effective in framing and freezing his opponent—particularly among suburban women. But the story behind the soundbite is a real, and still active, legal and policy battle.
Trump’s message called out Vice President Kamala Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care for violent, trans-identifying male prisoners. In fact, Harris claimed she, “Made sure they changed the policy in the state of California, so every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and needed.”
It was too much for voters, who went on to deliver a clear message: Return to common sense.
In the first weeks of his second term, President Trump issued executive orders ending the ideology voters rejected. Among them, Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” targets the ex-VP’s unpopular stance: No longer will there be taxpayer-funded, gender-affirming care in prisons, and prisoners would reside at facilities based on their biological sex.
That wasn’t the end of it.
In mid-February, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a...