Sponsors (6)
The bill aims to reduce perceived sex-based safety issues and BOP medical spending by restricting gender-related care and enforcing biological-sex housing, but it does so at the cost of worsening health outcomes, rights protections, and potential legal and implementation uncertainty for transgender, intersex, and other incarcerated people.
Prisoners will be housed and transported with people of the same biological sex, which proponents say could reduce some sex-based safety concerns for incarcerated people.
Taxpayers and the federal prison system will no longer pay for gender-related medical treatments for prisoners, which proponents expect to reduce BOP medical expenditures.
Transgender prisoners will be denied gender-affirming care, removing medically recommended treatments and worsening physical and mental health outcomes for incarcerated transgender people.
Rigid 'biological sex' housing and transport rules will increase safety and rights risks for prisoners whose legal sex differs from their biology or who are intersex, potentially leading to isolation, denial of access, or harm.
Giving the Bureau of Prisons discretion to add treatments to the prohibited list creates uncertainty and may produce inconsistent medical care across facilities for prisoners needing gender-related or related medical treatments.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Directs the Bureau of Prisons to separate inmates by biological sex, bans BOP‑funded gender‑related medical treatments, and defines key terms with specified exclusions.
Requires the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to segregate inmates for housing and transport by biological sex and prohibits the BOP from furnishing or paying for any gender-related medical treatment. The bill also defines terms such as “biological sex,” “male,” “female,” “gender,” and “gender-related medical treatment,” excludes certain treatments (including care for disorders of sex development and medical complications caused by gender-related treatment), and allows the BOP Director to identify additional treatments that count as gender-related. The measure changes BOP medical and placement policy for federal inmates, limits access to transition‑related health care covered or paid for by the BOP, and creates definitional and administrative authority for the agency to apply and expand the list of disallowed treatments.
Introduced February 5, 2025 by Nancy Mace · Last progress February 5, 2025