The Supreme Court has thrown out a lower court ruling that let a transgender woman's civil rights lawsuit against an El Paso County, Colorado jail move forward, ordering a new look at her case in light of the justices' recent decisions on transgender issues. Darlene Griffith alleges she was held in a men's unit of the jail for more than a year, sexually assaulted by a male inmate, and subjected to an abusive strip search by a male deputy despite asking for a female officer instead.
According to USA Today, which first reported the order, the justices' action Monday vacates the 10th Circuit's February 2025 ruling and sends the case back to the lower court to reconsider whether Griffith can sue over her treatment at the jail. The Washington Times, which also covered the order, reported that the justices' directive requires the lower court to weigh two recent Supreme Court cases that gave states more leeway to limit what the paper described as special treatment for transgender people in the contexts of sports and medical care — a reference reported as Monday's order being framed against the backdrop of those earlier rulings, according to The Washington Times.
What Griffith Says Happened at the Jail
Griffith, who has lived openly as a woman for more than 20 years, was a pretrial detainee at the El Paso County Jail when, she alleges, her civil rights were violated. She requested housing in a female unit but, according to the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, which has represented her, she was held in the jail's men's unit for more than a year before she was moved to a women's unit.
During that time, Griffith alleges she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male inmate and frequently searched by male deputies. The MacArthur Justice Center says one of those searches came despite Griffith begging for the female officer present to conduct it instead — the organization describes the search as abusive. Griffith filed a 16-count complaint that a district court initially dismissed in full.
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later allowed some of Griffith's allegations to proceed past the county's motion to dismiss, including, per the MacArthur Justice Center, an Equal Protection claim against the sheriff and a Fourth Amendment claim against the officer who carried out the strip search. The appeals court described the threshold for surviving a motion to dismiss as a “low bar,” and it did not decide whether the jail's policy of housing inmates based on biological sex is itself unconstitutional, according to USA Today's reporting. The Washington Times additionally reported that the 10th Circuit had ruled that, absent an emergency, male officers could not be involved in a strip search of an inmate who identifies as female.
The county sheriff appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that jail administrators face inconsistent mandates for classifying and housing transgender inmates while still maintaining facility safety and security, per USA Today's account. The Justice Department urged the justices to order reconsideration, contending the 2025 appellate ruling predated the Supreme Court's own recent decisions on two other transgender-rights cases. Justice Department lawyers wrote that some sex-based classifications are permitted in prisons, just as they are in sports and medicine, and the department argued the jail's housing policy could not be challenged under the guidance set by those newer rulings, according to the same USA Today report.
A Pattern of Recent Supreme Court Rulings
The case lands amid what USA Today describes as a string of Supreme Court rulings against transgender rights in recent years. Per that reporting, the court upheld a state ban on gender-affirming care for minors in 2025 and upheld bans on transgender athletes competing on female teams in 2026.
Not every recent ruling has gone the same direction, though. In a separate dispute over transgender inmates in federal prisons, the Supreme Court declined in October to let the Trump administration immediately deny gender-affirming care to those inmates while a legal challenge continues, as reported by NPR. That case stems from President Trump's 2025 directive ordering the federal Bureau of Prisons to house inmates according to biological sex, which incarcerated transgender women are challenging. The injunction requiring continued care has remained in place as that litigation continues, NPR reported, and an ACLU attorney involved in the case said the organization believes more than 2,000 people in Bureau of Prisons custody identify as transgender. The ACLU also said the bureau has treated people diagnosed with gender dysphoria since at least 1992.
For now, Griffith's case returns to the lower court, which must weigh her allegations against the backdrop of the Supreme Court's recent rulings on transgender issues. The evidence reviewed does not establish how that reconsideration will ultimately resolve her claims, and the full text of the justices' order, including their reasoning, has not been made public.
