The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota recently agreed to update its policies to ensure respect of trans inmates’ gender identities after an LGBTQ+-inclusive legal group filed a complaint over jailers housing a transgender male inmate in a women’s unit.

The group Gender Justice filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) in 2023 on behalf of a trans man who had transitioned 10 years before he was wrongly detained in a women’s detention unit based on the sex assigned to him at birth.

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Before reclassifying the man as female and moving him from a men’s unit, a correctional officer allegedly asked him invasive questions about his genitalia and disregarded his stated preference to be detained with other men, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

MDHR found the jail officials had committed unlawful discrimination. Subsequently, Gender Justice and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office entered conciliation, which resulted in the recent settlement. Though the office hasn’t necessarily admitted to any wrongdoing, it agreed to update its trans-inclusive policies and agreed to pay the wronged man an undisclosed amount for damages.

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The agreed-upon policy changes include housing inmates based on their gender identity; making good faith attempts to identify them with their chosen names, pronouns, and honorifics; and training jail workers on correct inmate classification policies.

“Trans people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect in every setting, including when they’re in custody,” Sara Jane Baldwin, senior staff attorney at Gender Justice, said in a Wednesday statement.

“People, not the government, get to say who they are,” Baldwin added. “Failing to honor that is discrimination. I hope other Minnesota counties will take notice of this settlement and ensure that their policies and practices follow the law.”

While the current presidential administration has instructed federal detention facilities to house detainees based on their sex assigned at birth, state, city, and county detention facilities can decide how to classify trans inmates.

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