A transgender woman incarcerated in New Hampshire’s state men’s prison is suing the state’s Department of Corrections for housing her with men and for denying her gender-affirming care.

As Valley News reports, Allison Alon’s lawsuit accuses the New Hampshire Department of Corrections of “deliberate indifference” to her medical needs and of violating her constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.

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According to the outlet, the lawsuit explains that Alon was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and has been receiving gender-affirming care for the past two years. In July, she was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping, possession of a controlled drug, and criminal threatening. During sentencing, a judge reportedly recommended that Alon continue to receive medical and mental healthcare in prison.

However, the lawsuit alleges that, since being incarcerated in the state’s men’s prison, she has been denied access to razors and tweezers, as well as women’s undergarments. It also alleges that the injectable hormone therapy she continued to receive while awaiting trial at the Strafford County Jail has since been replaced with pills.

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“My hormone levels have decreased to a level that amounts to a forced detransition,” Alon wrote in a supplemental request filed with the lawsuit, according to Valley News. “I was forced to become fully bearded which is a hazard to my mental health, exacerbates my gender dysphoria and causes suicidal ideation.”

Alon, who is reportedly currently assigned to the low-security residential treatment unit for inmates with behavioral health issues, says that she was placed on suicide watch for over two weeks in the prison’s maximum-security wing. She also claims she has been intentionally misgendered and has faced harassment and discrimination by prison staff and correctional officers.

According to Valley News, the lawsuit also accuses the state of violating a federal law requiring state prisons to evaluate the placement of trans prisoners on a case-by-case basis.

As The Georgetown Journal of Gender and Law noted in 2022, the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) requires prisons “to make individual determinations about how to ensure the safety of each inmate by evaluating placement on a case-by-case basis, while taking serious consideration of the inmate’s own views with respect to their safety.”

However, the journal cited a 2020 MSNBC report that found that out of nearly 5,000 transgender inmates incarcerated in state prisons, only 15 were housed in facilities that aligned with their gender identity. Transgender inmates are disproportionately vulnerable to sexual violence when housed in facilities that do not align with their gender identity.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration further undermined PREA’s protections for trans inmates in a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo instructing inspectors to cease evaluating jail, prison, and detention center standards protecting LGBTQ+ and intersex people. Auditors will no longer review whether trans inmates are housed according to their gender identity, a move aimed at bringing PREA into compliance with Trump’s January 2025 executive order denying federal recognition of non-cisgender identities.

In addition to monetary damages for “psychological harm, emotional distress, humiliation and exacerbation of gender dysphoria,” Alon is seeking punitive damages to prevent the New Hampshire Department of Corrections from “engaging in similar conduct in the future,” Valley News reports. She is also asking to be reassigned to a women’s prison and to be allowed access to proper gender-affirming care and grooming products.

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