Medical Experiments On Inmates

Trump & his cronies wasted no time at all launching another attack on the LGBTQ+ community...

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is running a conversion therapy program. We must not let it stand

Opinion: The Trump administration is imposing unnecessary cruelty on incarcerated transgender people who have nowhere to go, writes NCLR legal director Shannon Minter.

The Advocate

Shannon Minter

Mar 19, 2026

On February 19, 2026, the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued a new policy on the “Management of Inmates with Gender Dysphoria.” The title sounds clinical. The reality is brutal: the federal government has now officially placed itself in the business of punishing transgender people for being who they are, by withdrawing their medical care, confiscating their personal belongings, and subjecting them to forced psychological treatment. It is, in every meaningful sense, a blueprint for a government-run conversion therapy program, one targeting thousands of incarcerated people who have nowhere to turn.

This is becoming increasingly similar to what the Nazis did to the Jews. Conversion therapy is already banned in many states because of the profound harm it inflicts on patients!

NCLR condemns this policy in the strongest possible terms. For now, a federal court order is blocking its enforcement, and we are committed to ensuring it stays that way. But the policy itself is a declaration of intent, and we are calling on everyone, not just those who are transgender, not just those who have loved ones in prison, to recognize what it represents and to oppose it.

Part of the AMA  statement reads:

LGBTQ so-called “conversion therapy”

So-called “conversion therapy” refers to any form of interventions which attempt to change an individual’s sexual orientation, sexual behaviors or gender identity. Underlying these ‘therapies’ is the assumption that homosexuality and gender nonconformity are mental disorders and that sexual orientation and gender identity can be changed. This assumption is not based on medical or scientific evidence. Professional consensus rejects pathologizing homosexuality and gender nonconformity and evidence does not support the efficacy of changing sexual orientation.

“Conversion therapy” often includes unethical techniques including electric shock, deprivation of food and liquid, chemically induced nausea and masturbation reconditioning. These practices may increase suicidal behaviors and cause significant psychological distress, anxiety, lowered self-esteem, internalized homophobia, self-blame, intrusive imagery and sexual dysfunction.

The APA statement on the Supreme Court case reads in part...

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is deeply concerned that the Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar will potentially harm many LGBTQ+ individuals, particularly minors, who will no longer be protected by state laws against conversion therapy.

Being LGBTQ+ is not a mental illness or disorder. Conversion therapy — efforts to change sexual orientation and gender identity — is not a legitimate therapeutic treatment. Leading health care entities, the APA among them, have concluded that these are potentially harmful, discredited practices and are not supported by scientific evidence.

Question: Do you know who else performed medical experiments on prisoners?

Consider Holmesburg Prison, where incarcerated people, many of them Black were used in pharmaceutical and chemical experiments from the 1950s through the 1970s. Those tests included exposure to dioxin, experimental drugs, radiation, and chemical agents.

And during World War II, a number of German physicians conducted painful and often deadly experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without their consent.

Trump has officially stooped to that level in his pogrom to wipe us out!