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The U.S. Justice Department plans to conduct a federal civil rights investigation of state prison housing practices in Washington State to determine whether it violated the constitutional rights of female prisoners by incarcerating them with transgender female prisoners.Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division on Tuesday notified Washington Governor Bob Ferguson that the department would launch the probe into the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Gig Harbor, about 15 miles northwest of Tacoma. The investigation falls under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA).“Our investigation is based on information that WCCW has failed to protect female prisoners from sexual and physical violence, harassment, voyeurism, and intimidation from male prisoners who identify as female,” Dhillon wrote.The federal announcement follows a lawsuit filed against Washington’s corrections department last month on behalf of the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism and Faith Booher-Smith, a female inmate at the Gig Harbor corrections center who alleges she was violently attacked in August 2025 by a transgender inmate transferred to the facility.The suit brought by the America First Policy Institute claims the state’s policy has led to violence, sexual abuse, intimidation and ongoing fear among biologically female inmates.The institute, based in Washington, D.C., describes itself as a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group advancing policies “that put the American people first.”The complaint says state officials have continued to enforce the policy despite prior incidents and litigation and “repeated warning signs” that it “created a substantial risk of harm.” It alleges that biologically female inmates “have been forced to share cells, showers, bathrooms and other intimate living spaces with male inmates, stripping them of the sex-based protections a women’s prison is supposed to provide.”The suit further suggests female inmates are being subjected to “foreseeable and preventable harm” as a result.“A women’s prison is supposed to protect women,” said Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief legal affairs officer for the America First Policy Institute, in a news release announcing the litigation. “Washington’s policy turned that basic duty on its head. When the state knowingly forces women to live with men in intimate correctional settings — even after assaults, abuse allegations, and repeated warnings — it is violating the women’s constitutional rights.”Washington is the third state to face federal challenges to its prison housing practices.In March, the Justice Department notified California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Maine Gov. Janet Mills that it would initiate similar federal investigations into those states' prison housing practices linked to the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County, the Central California Women's Facility in Madera County and the Maine Correctional Center in Windham.In Washington, the department said it would investigate whether the Gig Harbor facility’s prisoners have been deprived of Eighth Amendment protections from cruel and unusual punishment while examining the state's response to allegations that the policy has led to sexual assaults, rape, voyeurism, and sexual intimidation.Chris Wright, communications director for the Washington State Department of Corrections, said the department was reviewing the justice department's letter and planned to cooperate with federal investigators."We are currently defending litigation on both sides of the policy, by the ACLU and the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism," Wright said. "DOC remains committed to upholding the rights and providing a safe environment for all incarcerated individuals in our custody.”The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington issued a statement noting that federal and state law require prisons to consider a person's gender identity and to make individualized decisions about housing placements for transgender prisoners.“These protections exist because of the serious safety risks facing incarcerated transgender people, particularly transgender women," said ACLU-Washington staff attorney Adrien Leavitt. "The Department of Justice’s announcement that it is launching an investigation into placement of transgender women at the Washington Correction Center for Women represents another troubling move by the federal government to target transgender people." In her letter to the governor, Dhillon said the justice department would inform the state of its findings and work with the state to remedy any determined systemic violations.“In our many years of civil rights enforcement, the good faith efforts of jurisdictions to work with us have routinely enabled us to resolve our claims without resorting to contested litigation,” she wrote.As of 2021, about 1,200 of the nearly 156,000 federal prisoners in the U.S. identified as transgender, according to the Justice Department. NPR reported last year that the number had risen to 2,200 of about 154,000 federal prisoners.
