On Jan. 7, 2025, I was starting my 19th and final year in federal prison. I was on the phone with my attorney as I weighed a monumental decision.
Would I continue to fight for the rights of transgender women behind bars, or agree to a settlement with the U.S. government instead?
I glanced at the pink Timex watch on my wrist: 3:20 p.m. I wanted to remember the exact moment I made this decision.
My attorney, Lisa Bivens, had just laid out why taking $95,000 from the federal government to settle seven pending civil rights lawsuits and six federal appeals was in my best interest.
During nearly two decades of incarceration, I had become a prolific jailhouse lawyer, pursuing more than 100 lawsuits against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Justice Department. By managing to bring a federal prisoner civil rights claim to trial without an attorney, I had accomplished something fewer than 1 percent of such claims achieve, according to a 2024 analysis by Business Insider. I had secured four preliminary injunctions and created entirely new legal precedents about how trans individuals should be treated while confined to prisons and jails. Now, I had to decide whether or not to keep fighting.
All my life I have identified as female. But the government has treated me as male since I entered prison in 2007. From 2018 to 2023, while housed in maximum security federal penitentiary units in Tucson, Arizona, I endured violent attacks from peers and was placed in solitary confinement for months after each attack.
Prison staff was frequently negligent regarding the effects on my mental health. I had been stabbed, beaten and nearly killed by those who reviled my gender identity. The government had resisted my gender-affirming clothing, female pronouns and makeup, as well as hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery.
My lawsuits convinced federal Judge Rosemary Márquez that I had viable constitutional claims that would require the government to treat me as a female. Márquez was further convinced the government should pay for the pain and suffering I endured while housed in the prison over which she had jurisdiction.
I considered Márquez a hero. My attorney told me I was a badass.
Although the judge, my attorney, and I all agreed there was enough evidence to support preliminary injunctions that would require the Bureau of Prisons to treat me as a female while imprisoned, Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration was 13 days away, and he actively opposed transgender rights,
Trump had aired hundreds of hours of campaign ads targeting the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, for her vocal support of equality and affirming care for transgender prisoners. He had campaigned on reversing governmental support of gender-affirming care, and was now the president-elect.
Though the Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah S. Letzkus in Arizona had approved the settlement, she needed Attorney General Merrick Garland or his designee to approve the deal before the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025. My release wasn’t scheduled until November that year. The offer was clear: Settle now or risk receiving nothing later.
“Grace, I know you want to fight and I admire your tenacity,” I remember Bevins said to me. “But as your attorney and as your friend, I don’t want to see these people run out the clock on you.”
I was silent for a moment. This money meant the United States was able to deny any liability for what happened to me over 18 years in prison. The change my cases could bring for other imprisoned trans women would evaporate, too.
Bevins and I discussed not just my judicial accomplishments, but also my future. I would never worry again about housing, a job or transportation upon my release. I could pay my mother’s debts and ensure her comfortable retirement. I could start the businesses I had always wanted.
“Let’s get it done and over with,” I finally said into the phone.
My incarceration was not quite finished, but the beginning of the end was marked on that Timex watch. All the legal files needed for all that litigation were now just archives. The next few months would bring a new prison, new friends and planning for life after incarceration. It felt like being reborn.
Less than two weeks later, on Inauguration Day, I was in solitary confinement when an officer handed me a piece of paper announcing that President Trump had disbanded the Transgender Executive Council in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. These subject-matter experts were responsible for the housing, healthcare and treatment of the incarcerated transgender population. An executive order signed on Jan. 20, 2025, required all trans women in women’s federal prisons be returned to male prisons and banned all gender-affirming care.
The lieutenant escorting a team of officers to my door instructed me to surrender my bras, panties “and any other transgender items,” or they would seize them with force, on the order of the president. Through tears, I removed the clothing beneath my uniform and handed it over.
More than a year later, I still ask myself: Who will change the prison policies I was paid to leave be? What if I had been the last best hope?
With every pang of self-doubt, I remind myself that I didn’t have the luxury of time with the incoming administration. I could help someone else finish the job later when I was free and better positioned to advocate. The hardest fight of my life was over.
