National
Trans women in state prisons on being targeted by Trump
Uncloseted Media spoke with five incarcerated trans women in state prisons
Uncloseted Media published this article on Dec. 3.
Editor’s Note: This article includes references to topics such as rape, sexual assault, and violence. Reader discretion is advised.
By HOPE PISONI | Being a transgender woman in prison has always been hard for Lexie Handlang. At 38 years old, she’s a writer for the Prison Journalism Project and is currently working on a kids’ fantasy book starring a young trans girl and her friend who encounter a mysterious magical being.
Handlang has been incarcerated in men’s prisons in Missouri for 11 years, where she says she’s experienced a great deal of violence and discrimination.
She says her fears today are at an all-time high. After Trump passed an executive order on his first day in office that rolled back a suite of the scant and hard-won rights of trans women in federal prisons, Handlang remembers prison staff gleefully gloating.
“Transgenders don’t exist no more.”
“It’s not a thing.”
“I’m not gonna call you by your preferred pronouns.”
“I’m gonna call you ‘sir.’”
The executive order, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” includes a mandate requiring trans women to be housed in men’s prisons and a ban on the use of federal funds for gender-affirming care.
The following month, the Bureau of Prisons issued a memo banning gender-affirming items like chest binders and undergarments and requiring staff to refer to incarcerated people by their “legal name or pronouns corresponding to their biological sex.”
While the order does not apply to state prison systems, Uncloseted Media spoke with five trans women incarcerated in three different states who say Trump’s crackdown has created a trickle-down effect. They say it has produced a climate where staff are ramping up their mistreatment of trans women, federal grants for prisons are at risk as the Trump administration feuds with states, and anti-trans propaganda is turning fellow prisoners against them.
“There’s a lot of wardens who’ve been waiting for this — the discrimination has increased and it’s not anything new,” says Kenna Barnes, advocacy manager at Black and Pink, a nonprofit focused on prison abolition and the rights of incarcerated trans people. “It’s happening in every faction of the carceral system, and they are getting very emboldened, and this is a cue for them.”
Escalating attacks
Even though the Trump administration can’t force anti-trans policies on state prisons, they have still been pushing for them. In April, the Department of Justice pulled $1.4 million in funds from Maine’s Department of Corrections, the bulk of which had been allocated to support a substance use treatment program for all incarcerated people. The funding was pulled in retaliation for continuing to allow a trans woman, Andrea Balcer, to be housed in the women’s section of the Maine Correctional Center.
“You asked my feelings on being in the center of this feud between Trump and Maine — I am not in the center, I am underneath the feet of these two giants colliding, a mecha and a kaiju if you will,” Balcer, 24, told Uncloseted Media in a phone interview from the prison. “So I am not so much the center as I am collateral damage.”
Balcer was transferred to the women’s section of the prison in November 2023 due to concerns about her safety in men’s prisons, which are notoriously dangerous for trans women.
She spends much of her time playing Pathfinder, a role-playing game based on Dungeons & Dragons, and has been trying to start a group to host discussions on paganism and monthly full-moon rituals.
Balcer says she tries to keep a low profile and was getting along fairly well with her fellow prisoners after a period of adjustment.
But that changed when Attorney General Pam Bondi bullied her on Fox and Friends by calling her a “giant, 6-foot-1, 245-pound guy” and claimed that funding cuts “will protect women in prisons.” Balcer says some women at the facility turned on her and started to parrot Bondi’s rhetoric about a “man in a woman’s prison.”
“The cultural backlash has been astounding,” she says. “And it’s not that I don’t understand these women — I 100 percent understand their position. Things that have helped them and things that have done so many good things for them are being taken away, and they’re angry, as they have every right to be. But they can’t take out their anger on the people who quite frankly deserve it, [so] they take out their anger on the people that are the indirect cause of this.”
While Balcer says things have slightly improved since Maine successfully appealed the funding cuts, life is still much harder under Trump 2.0.
And she’s not the only trans woman who has a target on her back. Michelle Kailani Calvin was housed at the Central California Women’s Facility since the state’s Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act — which she advocated for — passed in 2021. The act allowed trans women to be housed in women’s facilities.
Calvin, 54, was one of several trans women whose photos were included in a consequential advertisement for Trump’s 2024 campaign, which criticized Kamala Harris for supporting gender-affirming surgery in California prisons and included the infamous slogan “Kamala’s for they/them, not you.”
Difficulty accessing gender-affirming care
While gender-affirming surgeries in prison are still legally accessible in California, Calvin told Uncloseted Media via a phone call from CCWF that she has found it “very difficult … to get any kind of care” since Trump’s reelection.
She says she was scheduled for facial feminization surgery and a revision to her bottom surgery earlier this year to address complications including pain, bladder leakage and intense bleeding. Staff kept delaying them, however, claiming that she hadn’t passed a psychiatric evaluation and that she had a “dirty” toxicology report. According to Calvin, the substance that had been flagged was prescription gabapentin.
Calvin believes this foot-dragging is due to the Trump administration’s threats to cut funding, as they did with Maine.
“This is the game that the institution plays. Instead of just saying, ‘We’re not giving you a surgery because Trump ain’t giving us our money,’” she says.
Emboldened staff
Beyond having limited access to health care, Calvin says trans women face emboldened staff in Trump’s new America. In her case, this has involved increased scrutiny: After three years of no rule violations, she says she was hit with five in the span of four months.
She says several of those cases were provoked by abuse from guards. In one instance, which was documented in a report reviewed by Uncloseted Media, a guard forcefully removed her from her wheelchair and slammed her on the ground after he squeezed her shoulder without consent. She was later written up for resisting an officer.
And in March, the prison began investigating Calvin on allegations that she had assaulted her partner, who is also incarcerated. This led the prison to file a case with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Departmental Review Board to have her moved to a men’s prison.
Calvin says that numerous advocacy groups then sent letters to CDCR calling on them to reject the push. One lawyer, Jen Orthwein, wrote that “claims made against Ms. Calvin were submitted long after the alleged event by unnamed confidential informants, with no supporting documentation or medical evidence” and that the alleged victim “has indicated that the accusations are entirely false.” Uncloseted Media also spoke with the alleged victim from the prison where she is housed, and she affirmed that “Michelle never hurt me or any other female.”
“[The prison] feels like the Trump administration’s gonna have their back on whatever that they do, so they’re taking more bolder chances to isolate us or send us back to a men’s facility,” says Calvin.
While Calvin is still at a women’s facility, not everyone has been so lucky. CDCR recently proposed new guidelines that explicitly create a process for trans women to be transferred back to men’s prisons if they have “two or more serious Rules Violation Reports within a 12-month period.” Kelli Blackwell, 58, told Uncloseted Media on a phone call from CCWF that at least three trans women have been transferred to men’s prisons since 2024, which we confirmed on the California Incarcerated Records and Information Search website.
Blackwell is hopeful she’ll get released soon. With that in mind, she got her dentistry license and is set to earn a degree in sociology next spring. She also has a partner living with her in the women’s facility. But with increased scrutiny from CDCR and pressure from the Trump administration, she fears that a transfer to a men’s prison could disrupt all of that.
“You have trans women here that’s actually had the surgery, had the vaginoplasty — they’re still finding ways to send them back to a men’s prison,” she says.
In an email, CDCR said that they are “committed to providing a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people.” They also noted that the department “has a detailed process for patients seeking gender-affirming care, including hormonal treatment.”
Support systems have become ‘useless’
Trans women in prison are also losing the little support they had. Patricia Trimble, a 66-year-old trans woman, writer and advocate, has been incarcerated in men’s facilities in Missouri since 1979. While in prison, she’s pursued paralegal studies at Platt Junior College, theology at St. Louis University and business at Central Methodist University.
She’s used her education to advocate for herself, often through the Transgender Committee, a group of staff members required by law at each Missouri prison. The committee is meant to help the prison “make informed recommendations regarding the health and safety of transgender and intersex offenders.”
However, Trimble says that since the start of the year, the committee has become “absolutely useless.”
“At one point in time, I could sit down with the Transgender Committee … and we would discuss things that make the prison safer, and they were receptive,” Trimble told Uncloseted Media on a phone call from the Southeast Correctional Center.
“Since Trump, there are no conversations like that. When I go to the Transgender Committee, the deputy warden just kinda looks at me with that smile on her face like ‘you ain’t gettin’ nothing here, and I already know what you’re gonna ask, so let’s just go through the motions and then you can go away.’”
Trimble says this makes every issue harder to fight. In a recent incident, she tried to get transferred after being housed with a transphobic cellmate who would “bully” and “constantly pick on” her.
Trimble says that even though there were empty cells in her wing, she was sent back and forth between the Transgender Committee, case workers and her unit manager before getting approved to move into one of them. While she had the know-how to stand up for herself, most people don’t.
Even with her experience in advocacy, she says staff have been harder than usual on her. Earlier this year, after advocating for gender-affirming surgery, she says the prison put her on a call with a doctor who said she “will not be filing a report recommending any further treatment.”
“She had the audacity to tell me that she finds that I no longer suffer from gender dysphoria,” Trimble says. “And I just kinda laughed and said, ‘Okay, I guess we’re done here,’ and I got up and left.”
In an email, the Missouri Department of Corrections wrote that they do not “tolerate unprofessional conduct by staff,” and that “no changes [have been] made to policies pertaining to transgender residents of Missouri state prisons after the 2024 election.”
The danger of men’s prisons
While life in the women’s facilities is far from perfect, the people we spoke with say it’s worth fighting to stay.
According to a 2016 analysis by the Williams Institute at UCLA, 37 percent of incarcerated trans people — the overwhelming majority of whom are housed in prisons that do not match their gender identity — had experienced sexual assault within a one-year period, compared to just over 3 percent of cis people.
Blackwell says physical violence at the men’s prison, often spurred by gang activity, is “structured” and “can get you killed.” Calvin says she was raped multiple times at the men’s prison, and Trimble recounted numerous instances when guards strip-searched her in the presence of men.
Handlang says she’s experienced extreme abuse by guards at the men’s prison: “They went in my cell and they were ripping up pictures of family, trying to get me to react, ripping up my clothes, ripping up my bras, ripping up panties, destroying my makeup.” When she tried to fight back, she says “they went off camera and they broke my ankle and my foot and stomped on me and punched on me.”
As threats continue to escalate, and Trump’s policies continue to trickle down, Trimble fears she could lose the few rights she has left.
“I know that all it would take is a phone call from Trump or one of Trump’s surrogates to the governor, and the governor simply signs an executive order and everything we’ve got is taken away and we would end up having to go to court again,” she says. “If the governor wanted to, he could make our lives a lot worse with just a stroke of the pen.”
Fighting back
In the face of all these horrors, these women are advocating for themselves and caring for their trans sisters.
Handlang says that this often involves the most basic gestures: listening to their troubles, teaching them how to do their makeup and helping them buy hygiene products.
Calvin and Blackwell are still working to defend and uphold the trans-inclusive bills they helped pass, and Trimble has used her years of experience to work with legal advocacy groups to get support for things like name changes and to pressure the state to address mistreatment.
“If you’re going to be an advocate or an activist … it can never be about you,” Trimble says. “It’s about our boys and girls that are suffering in this oppressive system.”
National
White House orders warning signs at Smithsonian over gender identity exhibits
Administration criticizes National Museum of American History
The Trump administration will install temporary warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History after releasing a report accusing the museum of promoting what it calls “radical” gender ideology and other politically biased content.
According to the Executive Order, “For purposes of policy formulation under EO 14253, this review of the National Museum of American History concludes that NMAH, by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”
Executive Order 14253 refers to what the White House has deemed the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” order. Therefore, the Trump administration has said it will take all available steps to ensure that the issues in the report are addressed and rectified.
Without specifying, the White House has stated that warnings will be posted along NMAH to alert visitors to sections of the museum it has deemed are in violation according to the report.
“The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Director of the National Park Service (NPS) and in coordination with the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, shall install temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum, informing visitors of the findings of the Report and of the policy set forth in section 1 of this order,” the Executive Order states.
The warnings were raised in a 162-page report issued by the Domestic Policy Council. The report detailed ways in which the National Museum of American History (NMAH) has “poorly” portrayed American history and insufficiently highlighted the founding story during America 250th celebrations.
The report outlined key findings of the NMAH. One of these findings was the Center for Restorative History within the museum, which has stated its purpose is to “encourage systemic change” by highlighting diverse groups. However, the report states that it highlights every group of Americans except for straight and white Americans.
The Domestic Policy Council accused the museum of engaging in “transgender activism.” According to the report, examples include referring to “biological men” as women or girls, displaying what it describes as sexually suggestive content, and incorporating discussions of gender fluidity, gender identity, and gender nonconformity into the museum’s educational curriculum, “Becoming US.”
The report also criticizes the curriculum for using the term “transgender” when discussing gender-nonconforming people and encouraging individuals to ask a person’s pronouns when meeting them. It further objects to exhibits stating that “transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes” continue to struggle for and demand equality.
It also condemns what it refers to as explicit content in an exhibition, “Girlhood (It’s Complicated)”, such as chest binders, questioning gender testing in women’s sports, and referring to biological females as “people inhabiting female bodies.”
Additionally, the report accuses the museum of no longer participating in flag-celebrating ceremonies because it was “too busy” preparing for June Pride and WorldPride events. It states, “As Director Hartig explained in a June 2024 presentation, all her attention was focused on flying the Smithsonian Pride Alliance’s ‘intersexual pride flag during June’ in 2023 and 2024.”
On July 9, the American Historical Association issued a statement rejecting the report’s findings.
In regard to the report, it states, “Its anonymous authors overlook a central lesson of the nation’s founding: the United States was forged by finding common purpose amid intense divisions, conflicts, and disagreements.” They argue that only “honest history” can tell the true history of the nation.
House Republicans led a subcommittee hearing that questioned Smithsonian Director Hartig extensively. A main focus of the questions was on the exhibits related to gender identity and whether they were appropriate. In the hearing, Rep. Nancy Mace asked: “When was your gender revealed to you, Dr. Hartig?”
In response to questioning, Hartig stated that the institution is nonpartisan and does not push a specific agenda.
Hartig published a two-page statement ahead of her hearing outlining her thoughts on the situation. In the report, she states that the institution is always open to criticism and will continue to look for ways to improve, but she sees the report as misleading.
“I can attest that the report does not fairly characterize the full body of work at this museum. I am familiar with the depth and breadth of our collections, exhibits, and programming. And while I recognize there is always room for improvement, I also know the beauty, inspiration, and expertise that exists in our museum,” Hartig wrote.
Democrats created their own 16-page report as a rebuttal to the Domestic Policy Council’s report. It argued that the attacks by the current Trump administration are another example of its attempt to rewrite history. Additionally, the report states that no policy changes were included in the Executive Order, as that is beyond the President’s role. “The Report recommends nothing. That is no accident. To recommend an action, the Report would need to identify who is legally empowered to take it, and its own opening chapter concedes the President’s only power is to ‘urge’,” House Democrats wrote.
It is still unclear when the temporary warnings will be installed or what form they will take beyond the requirements outlined in the executive order.
An exhibit at the Smithsonian. (Washington Blade photo by Landon Shackelford)
National
Trump ends direct HIV prevention funding to community groups
Advocates say transfer of funds to states may disrupt local programs
A decision by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) at the request of the Trump administration to discontinue direct federal funding of community-based organizations and clinics that provide HIV prevention services has raised concern among community health advocates, including LGBTQ advocates.
News surfaced earlier this month that the OMB informed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it would not renew $46 million in funding for 96 community-based organizations that provide HIV testing, referrals to medical care, and arrangements for obtaining pre-exposure HIV prevention medication known as PrEP that has been shown to be 99 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.
Under the new policy arranged by OMB, the funds will be redirected to the states to be allocated to state and local health departments. The policy calls for states to encourage but not require their respective state and local health departments to allocate some of those funds for community-based organizations. Under the new policy, the funding is scheduled to last until May of 2027, before a renewal decision is made.
Some political observers have speculated that the decision to end direct federal funding to community-based organizations could be motivated by the Trump administration’s hostility to diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs and organizations that promote those programs, with the belief that some of the groups receiving the federal HIV prevention funds are promoting DEI.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the D.C.-based HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, is among the leaders of many AIDS advocacy organizations expressing strong opposition to the OMB action. Schmid said that in places like D.C. and some states, local officials will be willing to redirect the federal funds to local community-based organizations.
A list of the 96 community-based organizations across the country that are currently receiving the federal AIDS funds includes the D.C.-based Whitman-Walker Health, which has a long history of healthcare support for the LGBTQ community, and La Clinica del Pueblo, which reaches out to the Latino community.
Schmid said Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo have longstanding good relationships with the local D.C. government.
“But other states and jurisdictions don’t have that relationship with the community-based organizations,” Schmid said. “It depends on the state,” he said, adding, “Not all states send their money to the communities that really need it most. And not all states are fast in getting money to the community-based organizations.”
Spokespersons for Whitman-Walker and La Clinica del Pueblo couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on whether they think the Trump administration’s latest action related to funding will adversely impact their respective organizations.
Schmid said under the current federal grant program slated to be discontinued, which has been in effect for at least five years, HIV-related health organizations receiving the federal grant funds were eligible for an existing federal policy enabling them to purchase HIV-related medication, including the PrEP prevention medication, at a significant discount from pharmaceutical companies. With the ending of the direct federal HIV funds to community-based organizations, Schmid said it was unclear whether problems may surface in obtaining drug discounts.
“They could still qualify as a sub-grantee from a state,” Schmid said. “But what if they don’t get that grant again? They would not be able to qualify to obtain the drugs” at the discounted price, he said.
Among the organizations expressing strong concern over the decision to discontinue the direct HIV prevention funding to community-based organizations has been the Federal AIDS Policy Institute and its subgroup called the HIV Prevention Action Coalition.
In a July 22 letter bearing the names of 71 community-based organizations from throughout the country sent to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Acting Director Jay Bhattacharya, the group called for the Trump administration to “reconsider” ending the current funding policy.
“Ending this program without a clear plan for what comes next would dismantle prevention infrastructure that has taken more than three decades of federal investment to build and do so just as that long record of measurable returns is accelerating,” the letter states.
It says the initiative by President Trump in his first term as president to end the HIV epidemic and reduce new HIV infections by 90 percent by 2030 was moving ahead by the funding program for community-based organizations that the administration now wants to end.
“Discontinuing this program would also cost far more than it saves,” the letter says. “Every HIV transmission prevented avoids an estimated lifetime treatment cost of roughly half a million dollars per person to the healthcare system – costs that fall heavily on taxpayer-funded programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, and the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program,” the letter continues.
“The choice before the administration is straightforward: a modest, targeted investment in prevention now, or far greater public expense for treatment later,” the letter concludes.
Spokespersons for the OMB and the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, have not immediately responded to news media requests for comment on the opposition to the funding change policy.
National
At Alliance Defending Freedom’s summit, church and state are one
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) among speakers
Uncloseted Media published this article on July 23.
By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON | Earlier this month, hundreds of people filled a conference room in San Diego. These included Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Brian Christine, OpenAI executive Dean Ball, and the attorneys general of West Virginia and Idaho.
They all came together for Alliance Defending Freedom’s 2026 Summit. The Christian legal group, also a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group, described the event as a “gathering of leaders from many different spheres, including law, public policy, media, business, education, and Christian leadership.”
Johnson — who has said that “homosexual relationships are inherently unnatural and … society cannot give its stamp of approval to such a dangerous lifestyle” — was a featured speaker.
In his speech, he seemed unconcerned with the separation of church and state: “It is so encouraging to Kelly and I to be among friends and fellow warriors for this cause and people who understand that God is not done with America yet. … ADF’s on the very tip of the spear, front line, defending those very truths and keeping the door open for the spread of the Gospel. This is our moment. I’m telling you, I believe the next season … is going to be the greatest season of this ministry since its inception.”
That ministry is one that has espoused aggressively anti-LGBTQ views since its inception in the early 1990s. It was co-founded by a group of evangelical men, including Alan Sears, who co-authored a book called “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today.” Since then, ADF has opposed gay marriage and supported bans on gay sex and on gender-affirming care for minors.
After helping overturn Roe v. Wade, ADF lawyers have led key victories at the Supreme Court. In 303 Creative v. Elenis, SCOTUS ruled that a website designer could refuse service to gay weddings. And this year they convinced the Court to overturn Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy and to uphold state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that ban trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams.
At the summit, ADF President Kristen Waggoner, who has promoted conversion therapists and consistently misgenders trans people, interviewed these states’ attorneys general.
“The lawyers who were defending women’s sports were among the best I’ve ever seen in my entire life,” West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Waggoner.
Similar to Johnson, Trump’s Assistant Secretary of Health Christine showed his commitment to governing based on conservative Christianity. He gave a Bible-thumping speech against gender transition and trans healthcare, saying that it “contradicts … the deeper moral order that is woven into creation itself. For Genesis 1:27 informs us that God created man in his own image. … Male and female” He also said the “complementary relationship between man and woman is divine” and advocated for youth with gender dysphoria to receive care from a pastor.
All of these remarks from politicians made me think of the interview I published earlier this week with Pete Hegseth’s pastor, Doug Wilson. He wants a Christian theocracy in America and told me that: both the perpetrator and the victim should be disciplined in some cases of marital rape; that transgender people are “sad;” that execution is justifiable for certain homosexual acts; and that gay sex should be illegal.
The ADF Summit is glossy and polished. And while its messaging may be less explicit than Pastor Wilson’s, the track record of the organizations shows they have the exact same desires. They’re just deeply strategic in what they say and when and how they say it.
I believe the political power players who attended this year’s summit know this. They know they are endorsing an organization whose members have essentially called for the illegalization of most — if not all ‚ forms of queer behavior and presentation.
In the last few years, these perspectives have become increasingly embedded in the highest rooms of the federal government and they have been effective in stripping away LGBTQ rights. Wilson, who just installed a full-time pastor in Washington to lead services, says there are 10 to 20 government officials who align with his church’s ideology.
It is vital for Americans to keep their eyes wide open to the ultimate goal of groups like ADF: to create a United States that leaves LGBTQ people without rights and that pushes us back in the closet.
PHOTOS: Petal Release Party
Madonna headlines World Pride Music Festival in Amsterdam
Reggie White relishing first season as artistic director of Woolly Mammoth
PHOTOS: Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade
Amsterdam Pride Canal Parade draws hundreds of thousands
‘Heartstopper Forever’ delivers satisfying conclusion
Madonna to perform at World Pride in Amsterdam
BLADE ENDORSEMENT: Susan Stewart for mayor of Rehoboth Beach
PHOTOS: Lambda Legal in the Pines
