A transgender man is suing after he allegedly was threatened with violence, misgendered, denied medical care, and forced to wash himself in a sink in prison, saying that his constitutional rights were violated. He said he was even attacked by a woman inmate who told him he “ain’t supposed to be here,” even though he didn’t want to be in the women’s unit in the first place.

The man, who is identified only as “John Doe” in his suit, alleges that he was assigned to a women’s unit at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Eagleville, Pennsylvania, between September 2023 and May 2024, despite being a man after he transitioned in 2010 and obtained legal documents that identify him as male.

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“You were born as a female, we will put you with females,” he says he was told by a member of the jail’s staff when he protested being put in a women’s unit, according to Philadelphia Gay News.

Then he was denied access to hormones by the jail’s health care contractor, PrimeCare Medical Inc., which meant that his body started detransitioning while he was in prison. Forced detransitioning can increase a person’s physical and psychological distress, sometimes due to side effects from suddenly ending hormone replacement therapy that the body has become used to.

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Doe said that he was told to shower with women, which he refused to do, so he washed himself using the sink in his cell. He said that the other inmates insulted him about his hygiene, and he tried to explain that he didn’t feel comfortable showering with women, but the insults continued.

Even one staff member at the jail told him, “I’ll drag you into that god-damned shower.”

He said that the women inmates were outraged that he was housed with them and harassed him regularly. Some said that they would sue the jail for putting a man in the women’s unit. Two inmates, Doe said, would regularly go to his cell just to stare at him and laugh.

One woman told him he “ain’t supposed to be here.” She later attacked him, scratching his back and neck and leaving visible marks. Doe says that the woman faced no disciplinary action, and he was put in administrative segregation for his own safety.

Other indignities include being forced to wear women’s underwear and being watched by the women who worked there while he changed clothes. When he said he wasn’t comfortable changing in front of women, one correctional officer threatened to cut his clothes off him. He was also only allowed to go to the jail’s barber shop once while he was housed there.

Doe’s lawsuit, which names the county, PrimeCare Medical Inc., and warden Sean P. McGee as defendents, seeks $150,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. He is also asking for LGBTQ+ sensitivity training for staff members of the jail.

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