Justice Department Finds Utah Prison System Discriminated Against Incarcerated Individual Based on Gender Dysphoria

The Justice Department today announced its finding that the Utah Department of Corrections (UDOC) violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by discriminating against an incarcerated transgender woman on the basis of her disability, gender dysphoria. The department’s investigation found that UDOC failed to provide the complainant (who identifies as female but was assigned male at birth) equal access to health care services after she repeatedly requested hormone therapy. UDOC also failed to make reasonable modifications to its policies and practices to treat the complainant’s gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition marked by clinically significant distress caused by an incongruence between the sex an individual is assigned at birth and their gender identity. Left untreated, individuals with gender dysphoria can experience serious adverse mental health outcomes. 

“All people with disabilities including those who are incarcerated are protected by the ADA and are entitled to reasonable modifications and equal access to medical care, and that basic right extends to those with gender dysphoria,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Civil Rights Division is committed to ensuring that jails and prisons throughout the country do not discriminate against people with disabilities, and that right includes people with gender dysphoria.”

The department’s investigation found that UDOC imposed unnecessary barriers to treatment for gender dysphoria that were not required for other health conditions, and unnecessarily delayed the complainant’s treatment. When UDOC finally provided her with hormone therapy, it failed to take basic steps to ensure that the treatment was provided safely and effectively.

UDOC also failed to grant the complainant’s requests for reasonable modifications including permitting her to purchase female clothing and personal items in the commissary, modifying pat search policies and individually assessing her housing requests to avoid discrimination on the basis of gender dysphoria. As a result, her gender dysphoria worsened during her incarceration at UDOC. Twenty-two months after entering custody, she performed dangerous self-surgery and removed her own testicles.

The department’s written notice to UDOC of its findings details remedial measures necessary to address them. The department’s investigation is part of its broader efforts to combat discrimination against individuals with gender dysphoria. These include the Civil Rights Division’s recently filed statement of interest clarifying that gender dysphoria can be a covered disability under the ADA and explaining that correctional institutions violate the Eighth Amendment when they categorically refuse to provide medically necessary gender-affirming care to incarcerated individuals with gender dysphoria.

The Civil Rights Division’s Disability Rights Section is handling this matter in collaboration with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah.

For more information on the Civil Rights Division, please visit www.justice.gov/crt. For more information on the ADA, please call the department’s toll-free ADA Information Line at 1-800-514-0301 (TTY 1-833-610-1264) or visit www.ada.gov.