A trans woman moved from a women’s prison to a men’s facility is suing the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) over her transfer, calling it “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Trans inmate Amber Kim was previously incarcerated at a women’s prison after a years-long effort to be housed there. In March, she was discovered having consensual sex with her cisgender cellmate and cited for a “504 infraction,” which forbids sexual contact between inmates, the Huffington Post reports.

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Kim is on a hunger strike, and has been since Friday, demanding to be transferred back. “I’m just scared it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better,” she said.

The following week, the right-wing National Review published an expose about the incident, based on a leaked disciplinary report. The story deadnamed and misgendered Kim and described transgender women as “male inmates who identified as women” in order to sexually exploit female prisoners. No allegations of assault or non-consensual sexual activity were cited by prison officials.

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A regularly scheduled review of Kim’s housing conditions shortly after the infraction determined she should remain in the women’s prison, but, breaking protocol, the department initiated another review just weeks after the story appeared and determined she would be moved to a men’s facility.

The “sudden reversal … was arbitrary, in bad faith, and lacking a legitimate penological purpose,” Kim’s lawyers, Adrien Leavitt and La Rond Baker of the ACLU-Washington, wrote in her petition. The lawyers noted Kim didn’t receive any additional disciplinary infractions between the two decisions.

“DOC’s baseless transfer decision defies its own well-found reasons for placing Ms. Kim at [Washington Corrections Center for Women] nearly four years ago,” her lawyers wrote. “For Ms. Kim, the risk of violence, sexual assaults and harassment is not merely speculative. … Prior to her transfer to WCCW, Ms. Kim experienced … two attempted sexual assaults, inappropriate touching by DOC employees, and ongoing sexual and verbal harassment by male inmates.”

Prison officials originally accused Kim of “resisting transfer” when she was moved to the women’s facility and she was placed in solitary confinement at the men’s prison as punishment. They have since retracted the accusation.

Kim, however, has chosen to remain in solitary over fears for her safety.

“If I am eventually placed in men’s general population, I will live in constant fear. I am afraid of physical assault, sexual assault, and the constant harassment,” she wrote in a declaration accompanying the lawsuit.

“I will face the ultimate paradox: my continued physical transition helps address my debilitating gender dysphoria, but the more female-presenting I become in appearance, the more unwanted, nonconsensual attention I will receive from the men in prison.”

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