The Trans Woman Who Sued the Federal Prisons (and Won) Settles Her Remaining Cases
Attorneys for the federal prison system agreed last week to pay $95,000 to a transgender woman who had alleged in dozens of lawsuits that she had been abused and mistreated in its custody by both fellow prisoners and staff. The agreement to settle the suits was signed just days before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to end federal accommodations and support for trans people.
Grace Pinson was featured in a story published by The Marshall Project, Mother Jones and Arizona Luminaria about the dangers of life in federal prison for transgender women. The story recounted how Pinson sued the Bureau of Prisons after she was brutally beaten by her cellmate. Prison officials had locked her in a cell with no emergency alarm with a man serving time for sexual assault.
A dogged and effective jailhouse lawyer, Pinson brought that case and another against the Bureau of Prisons to trial last year and won them both without an attorney or any formal legal training. In both cases a judge placed blame on the bureau and its employees for Pinson being harmed unnecessarily. Now, as part of this settlement, Pinson will drop at least 13 additional cases that argued that the prison system had denied her gender-affirming care and had failed to keep her safe, among other allegations.
