Two female inmates at a federal prison for women with special needs in Fort Worth, Texas, saw a landmark early court win in November when a judge ordered transgender-identifying male inmates to be housed away from them following claims of sexual abuse.
But rather than keep the biological males completely separate from the female prison population at Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, Texas, Warden Tyal Rule has chosen to move the males to different housing units to live among other female inmates during litigation, a court filing first obtained by Breitbart News alleges.
In the November temporary restraining order, a judge in one of the nation’s most conservative district courts gave Rule the option to house trans-identifying male inmates in their own area or in another female housing unit away from the two plaintiffs, inmates Rhonda Fleming and Miriam Herrera. Rule chose the latter, allowing biological males, most of whom have not undergone surgical modifications, to live among other female inmates, the filing alleges. Several female inmates in the housing units where the trans-identifying males have been moved are now asking to join the lawsuit in the hopes of also securing protection for themselves.
Attorneys Brian Field and John Greil with D.C. law firm Schaerr|Jaffe LLP are representing four women who are asking the court to include them in the lawsuit, called a “motion to intervene” in legalese. Attorneys first asked for inmates Elizabeth Hardin and Brenda Kirk to be added to the lawsuit on Nov. 10, and on Wednesday they are asking the court to add inmates Jasmine Meabon and Keisha Williams, who are now living with transgender-identifying males who were moved into their housing unit following the court’s order.
“Having been ordered to protect Plaintiffs Fleming and Herrera from biological males, the Warden simply took a male inmate and moved him into a different women’s unit in the same prison,” the attorneys wrote in the proposed complaint. “Instead of solving the problem, he chose to injure different women.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ), which oversees the Bureau of Prisons (BOP), appears to be against more female inmates seeking redress in this case, asking the court on Dec. 1 not to allow more plaintiffs to be added to the case on procedural grounds. The DOJ’s position seems surprising, given President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating the removal of biological men from women’s prisons. The executive order has been on pause during other litigation brought by transgender-identifying inmates in a D.C. case, but that litigation would not bar the segregation of trans-identifying males inside women’s prisons for safety purposes.
The DOJ did not respond to request for comment by time of publication, and the BOP told Breitbart News via email that it “does not comment on pending litigation or matters that are the subject of legal proceedings.”
When asked about apparent DOJ opposition in the case, Field and Greil said: “That’s the million-dollar question.”
“It’s clear that Warden Tyal Rule is fighting the president’s policy, and he’s likely hoping that the White House doesn’t notice,” they told Breitbart News. “In fact, even when he faced a court order, Warden Rule did the absolute minimum to comply. It’s possible that this matter has flown under the radar at Main Justice and the White House, but DOJ needs to put eyes on it, hold folks accountable, and make sure that the President’s policies become reality.”
‘Women Pay the Price’
FMC Carswell, which is a women’s prison primarily for those suffering from medical and mental health problems, has three general housing units: One North, Two North, and Two South.
Meabon, who resides in Two South, is now housed in the same unit as trans-identifying male inmate Gary Boone, who, according to earlier filings in the case, was convicted in connection with a pipe bombing that resulted in the death of his wife’s lover. He also allegedly has “ongoing sexual relationships with female inmates and has been observed sharing a cell naked and having sex with a woman who reportedly suffers from mental illness,” court filings allege.
The filing obtained by Breitbart News alleges that Meabon “suffered an injury to her bodily privacy in a common-area restroom” when Boone looked over her bathroom stall and “made a threatening and sexually explicit comment.”
“Camera footage shows him entering the restroom contrary to posted rules,” the document alleges.
Attorneys also alleged that Carswell moved at least one male inmate from Two North to One North, where Williams is housed. Williams is now being forced to share showers and restrooms with men, with attorneys accusing defendants of “destroy[ing] women’s bodily privacy daily.”
“When you erase the idea of biological sex, women pay the price. Because of Warden Rule’s actions, these women must share shower areas, restrooms, and living spaces with biologically male inmates, who are convicted rapists, sex criminals, and murderers. And nearly all these men still have male genitalia,” Field and Greil told Breitbart News.
The Washington Examiner published an expansive article on the lawsuit and original plaintiffs after the judge in the case granted a temporary restraining order. The article, written by reporter Mia Cathell, cites an internal BOP report which identifies 1,300 male prisoners who identify as transgender in federal prisons. More than half (51.3 percent) of those trans-identifying male inmates are imprisoned for sex offenses — “nearly four times the sex-offense rate of the total federal prison population, which is 93.5 percent male.”
“The risk of sexual assault is real — over half the trans-identifying males in federal prison are there for sex crimes. But the female inmates face more than just the risk of sexual assault; they suffer daily indignity, knowing that men might be peeping at them in the showers, while they undress, and while they use the bathroom,” Field and Greil said. “No woman should have to live through that, as the President’s Executive Order confirms.”
The original complaint details each transgender-identifying inmate at FMC Carswell and their reasons for being in prison. It also details claims of retaliation against female inmates who protested being housed with biological men, allegations of sexual assault perpetrated by trans-identifying males against female inmates, and some prison staff who expressed sympathy toward transgender ideology.
“We are not second-class citizens, but last-class citizens,” Fleming told the Examiner.
Field and Greil emphasized that these female inmates “are completely at the mercy of the government.”
“The women at Carswell have no say — if the government says they must share restrooms with a 6-foot-tall male rapist, the women must do so,” the said.
“Oftentimes, the debate over gender and sex is framed in the abstract. But that misses the concrete reality: Real women suffer when the government ignores the facts and caters to the self-identification of biological males,” they added.
Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater, a Reagan appointee, is holding an evidentiary hearing in the case on Dec. 18. The hearing will center around whether original plaintiffs, Fleming and Herrera, exhausted administrative remedies within the prison system before filing the lawsuit.
As for Hardin, Kirk, Meabon, and Williams, the court is not under any deadline to add them as plaintiffs to the case, meaning an answer could come at any time, attorneys said. In the meantime, they will continue to serve their sentences alongside men who claim to be women and answer to those who enable the delusion.
The case is Fleming v. Warden T. Rule, No. 4:25-cv-157 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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