Janiah Monroe, Marilyn Melendez, Lydia Heléna Vision, Sora Kuykendall, and Sasha Reed v. Lamenta Conway, Melvin Hinton, and Latoya Hughes

Summary

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois issued a preliminary injunction concerning the transfer and placement of incarcerated class members diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The order directs Defendants to transfer qualifying individuals from Menard Correctional Center, consider specified medical, safety, security, and gender-identity factors, provide advance written notice, and submit monthly reports and records to the Court and Plaintiffs’ counsel.

Holdings

1. The court ordered defendants to transfer class members housed at Menard to other facilities, consider specified medical, mental-health, gender-identity, safety, security, and placement criteria, provide advance written notice and reasons for transfer decisions, and allow certain transfer requests to facilities matching a class member's gender identity.
2. Defendants may not assign a person recognized as a class member to Menard as a permanent institution; when an individual housed at Menard requests a gender-dysphoria evaluation, IDOC must conduct the evaluation within seven working days, confirm the diagnosis within fourteen days in its discretion, and transfer a person confirmed with gender dysphoria within twenty-one days.
3. Defendants must provide monthly status reports to the court and plaintiffs' counsel and must produce monthly documentation concerning Menard class members, including transfer materials, grievances, PREA complaints and investigations, treatment notes, and medical and mental-health records identified in the order.

Questions Presented

1. What preliminary injunctive requirements should govern the transfer, evaluation, placement, notice, and monitoring of class members housed at or entering Menard Correctional Center?
2. What specificity is required under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(d)(1)(C) for the injunctive relief entered against the defendants?

Disposition

other