A Muslim inmate must be exempt from strip searches by a female prison guard who identifies as a transgender man, a federal appeals court has ruled.
According to the prisoner, being strip-searched by a guard “whose biological sex is observably female” not only violated Sharia law but also state regulations against cross-sex strip-searches. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit agreed and ordered that the Green Bay Correctional Institution violated the inmate’s religious rights by not accommodating his religious beliefs, which dictate that he is forbidden from exposing his naked body to any woman but his wife.
“There’s no dispute that his objection to cross-sex strip searches is both religious in nature and sincere,” the chief judge wrote in the ruling. “The prison has substantially burdened his religious exercise by requiring him to either submit to cross-sex strip searches in violation of his faith or face discipline.”
According to the Washington Times, inmates at the facility are subject to strip-searches whenever they leave or enter the prison and at other times deemed necessary. Strip-searches require a witness, and the female prison guard was present as a witness in accordance with the requirement back in 2016.
In 2020, U.S. District Judge Pamela Pepper, an Obama appointee, originally dismissed the prisoner’s case, arguing that his sincere religious beliefs did not trump the female guard’s right to identify as a man and be treated as one.
I completely agree with the new ruling but can’t help but wonder why such an exemption can be made for religious reasons but no other. Should female prisoners be subjected to strip searches by male prison guards who “identify” as women even if they have no specific religious objection? Should young girls be forced to share changing facilities with adult men who “identify” as women?
If this court recognizes that biological sex trumps “gender identity” for Muslim inmates in prison, then it should for everything else as well. No individual’s “right” to “identify” as the opposite gender trumps the rights of others to believe the biological reality of their sex. Hopefully, this ruling will result in more rulings that bring sanity back.
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