Washington State Under Federal Investigation For Housing Men In Women's Prisons

Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced May 19 that its agents have launched an investigation into Washington State’s practice of housing male inmates in women’s prisons.

Gov. Bob Ferguson was notified in writing of the federal probe into an alleged pattern of “violating the constitutional rights of female prisoners incarcerated at the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, Washington,” the DOJ stated.

The investigation is based on allegations that the prison has failed to protect female prisoners from sexual assaults, rape, voyeurism, and sexual intimidation by males who identify as females housed with them at the facility.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said the practice would be a violation of the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment protections from cruel and unusual punishment.

“Under my leadership, the Civil Rights Division will not allow women incarcerated in jails or prisons to be subject to unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates,” Dhillon said in a statement. “The constitutional rights of women cannot be sacrificed at the altar of appeasing unsupported and dangerous ideologies.”

The Washington State Department of Corrections adopted a policy in 2020 to allow men who identify as transgender to request a transfer to women’s facilities. The policy requires housing accommodations for inmates who are transgender, intersex, and gender-neutral to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The state is one of a small number of states to adopt similar policies. Maine, California, New York, Minnesota, and New Jersey also allow people who identify as transgender to be housed in a prison that matches their choice in gender. California and Maine were notified in March that their policies were also under investigation.

The DOJ said it was also collecting information from the public on men housed in women’s jails and prisons anywhere in the country as part of a wider investigation.

Investigating transgender prison policies is part of the Trump administration’s program to eliminate “gender ideology extremism and restore biological truth to the federal government,” which was an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2025.

The DOJ plans to review policies at the Washington prison and the Department of Corrections, and any evidence that has been reported. Federal investigators will work with the state to remedy any violations, according to the letter.

The investigation comes weeks after the America First Policy Institute, a right-leaning nonprofit think tank, filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s corrections policy, alleging it has led to violence, sexual abuse, intimidation, and fear among female inmates.

The complaint was filed on behalf of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, Fair for All, Inc., and Faith Booher-Smith, an inmate who was allegedly violently attacked by a transgender inmate at the prison in 2025.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs claim female inmates have been forced to share cells, showers, bathrooms, and other intimate living spaces with male inmates, stripping them of the sex-based protections of a women’s prison.

“A women’s prison is supposed to protect women,” said Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief legal affairs officer at the institute. “Washington’s policy turned that basic duty on its head.”

The Washington governor’s office did not return a request for comment about the investigation.