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“I am the ONLY female being held in a male prison here in New Jersey all because I am transgender,” Gia Valentina told Truthout.

In January 2026, after years of requesting the procedure, Valentina had vaginoplasty, a gender-affirming surgery that creates a vagina and vulva. She was hoping that the procedure would allow her to be moved to Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, New Jersey’s sole women’s prison. But in June, she learned that the state’s prison system denied her transfer request.

The denial left Valentina aghast. “So now the NJDOC [New Jersey Department of Corrections] will house a female with a vagina in male population. I’ve been approved by the NJDOC to be the very first woman to begin their coed housing,” she wrote in an electronic message after learning about the denial.

In 2021, the New Jersey Department of Corrections implemented a policy giving incarcerated trans people the “presumption” to be housed according to their gender identity. In 2023, however, a trans woman impregnated two women at the Edna Mahan and the state reversed that policy.

No one had accused Gia Valentina of sexual activity during her 58 days at EMCF. Nonetheless, she was transferred to New Jersey State Prison in May 2023 and placed in protective custody, where she spent at least 22 hours each day in her cell.

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Approximately 70 trans women are in New Jersey state prisons. Since October 2022, three transgender women have been approved for transfer to the appropriate facility. But, Christopher Greeder clarified in an email to Truthout, “The New Jersey Department of Corrections does not base housing assignments or transfer decisions solely on whether an incarcerated person has undergone a specific medical procedure.”

Valentina had a ray of hope when Jamie Belladonna, another trans woman at New Jersey State Prison, was transferred to Edna Mahan after having vaginoplasty.

But the increasing hostility toward trans people might affect her as well as the unknown number of trans women behind bars. Since 2020, state legislatures have passed hundreds of anti-trans bills. Last year the Supreme Court upheld bans on gender-affirming care for young people, which 20 states had already passed. State-level legal protections for trans people have not always extended to those behind bars.

After taking office in 2025, Trump signed an executive order stating that the federal prison system “shall ensure that no federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex.”

In February 2026, the Bureau of Prisons, which oversees the federal prison system, announced it would stop providing gender-affirming medical and transition care to trans people in custody. Under the new policy, trans people will no longer have access to surgery, clothing, or toiletry items that align with their gender identity. People on hormone medications will be forced to taper off and instead (allegedly) be offered therapy and psychiatric medications like antidepressants.

Incarcerated trans people are over five times more likely than the general population to be sexually assaulted by staff and over nine times more likely to be assaulted by other incarcerated people.

Incarcerated trans people are over five times more likely than the general population to be sexually assaulted by staff and over nine times more likely to be assaulted by other incarcerated people.

In March, the Department of Justice announced investigations against Maine and California, and another against Washington in May, for housing (some) trans women in women’s prisons. In April, a federal court declined to block the Bureau of Prisons’ efforts to transfer 18 trans women to men’s prisons. (The court sent the case back to the district judge, who had earlier blocked their transfer.)

Still, trans women behind bars have described ongoing violence and hostility that have predated the current administration’s attacks. Incarcerated trans people are over five times more likely than the general population to be sexually assaulted by staff and over nine times more likely to be assaulted by other incarcerated people.

“Always........

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