The U.S. Supreme Court has vacated a federal appeals court decision that favored a male inmate seeking transfer to a women’s jail in Colorado.
In an orders list released Monday, the high court threw out a 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Sheriff Roybal v. Darlene Griffith. The justices remanded the dispute back to the 10th Circuit for reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld state authority to maintain sex-separated sports and restrict gender medical procedures.
The plaintiff, a biological male identifying as female, sued El Paso County officials after being housed in an all-male unit. Griffith alleged the housing policy violated equal protection rights. While a divided appellate panel previously revived the lawsuit, dissenting Judge Timothy Tymkovich stressed that sex is a biological fact and that sex-based segregation in correctional facilities remains constitutional.
