Shaun pulls up the case files and sits with two women separated by thirty-one years who made the exact same argument to the exact same government: you knew what would happen to me, and you put me there anyway. In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived, Shaun traces the legal history behind Poe v.
DOJ , the federal lawsuit filed on May 6, 2026 by a transgender woman incarcerated in a men's prison who is identified in court documents only as Paulina Poe. The case challenges a December 2025 Department of Justice memo that instructed PREA auditors to stop evaluating whether facilities were complying with protections for transgender and LGBTQ prisoners, without going through any public rulemaking process.
PREA was not repealed. The regulations did not change.
A memo was enough. Shaun centers Dee Farmer , the Black transgender woman who was raped in a men's federal penitentiary in 1989, sued the United States government, lost twice, and won a Supreme Court ruling in 1994 that established the deliberate indifference standard under the Eighth Amendment.
That ruling became the foundation for the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which passed the Senate 99 to zero in 2003 under George W. Bush, and was built into enforceable federal regulations under the Obama administration in 2012.
The episode closes with the numbers behind Poe v. DOJ: 2,198 transgender people in federal custody, 22 of them housed in facilities matching their gender identity, and a federal government that restructured its entire enforcement apparatus over those 22 women.
If you are searching for information about the Paulina Poe lawsuit, PREA transgender protections, or the deliberate indifference standard as it applies to transgender women in federal prison, this episode is for you. Follow Assigned Sex on Facebook and Instagram at @assignedsex, and subscribe to the Assigned Sex newsletter on Substack for episode updates and extended conversations.
Credits: Host: Shaun Dawson · Audio Engineer: Aaron Freeman · Producers: Shaun Dawson & Nandikayyy · Sound Design: Nandikayyy · Music: "Soul of Orleans" by John Lopke; "Street Gospel Hip Hop Piano – 75bpm – Bbmaj" by nnaudio (licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0). Sources: — Farmer v.
Brennan, Oral Argument (Jan. 12, 1994). Oyez.: — “Two Decades After the Prison Rape Elimination Act.” U.S.
Senate Hearing.: — Minter, Shannon. National Center for LGBTQ Rights interview on CNN .: — “ Dee Farmer Deliberately Resisted.” Just Detention International.: — “President Obama Speaks Out Against Prisoner Rape.” Just Detention International.: — Bloomberg News. “Trump Signs Order to Ban Transgender Women .”: — Poe v.
DOJ , filed May 6, 2026, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Coverage via National Center for LGBTQ Rights (NCLR):
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