The D.C. Department of Corrections will end a policy that places transgender people in shackles when they are first processed at the jail, after a settlement filed in court on March 23 concluded a months-long dispute over gender housing policies at the facility.

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       The change is the latest in steps the department has taken since May, when the American Civil Liberties Union of D.C. and the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit asserting that the jail’s practice of assigning detainees to housing at intake according to anatomy was discriminatory on the basis of gender identity and sex.

       That summer, the Department of Corrections changed the policy to instead house transgender people in protective custody at intake, which is often compared to solitary confinement, before a committee convened to determine their long-term placement. But the ACLU argued that the new protocol was just as discriminatory as the one that inspired the lawsuit because people held in protective custody had to be shackled when moving within the jail, a practice attorneys said violated their dignity.

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       The parties reached a settlement Thursday in which the Department of Corrections said that within 60 days it would end shackling for all people held in protective custody who are not in other categories of restrictive housing, with few exceptions. The department also agreed that within 30 days it would limit the time transgender people are held in protective custody to a maximum of 24 hours, excluding weekends and holidays, and that for four months it would report to the Public Defender Service its progress on implementing the changes.

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       A spokesperson for the Department of Corrections did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

       “No one should face what I had to face at the D.C. Jail,” said Sunday Hinton, a transgender woman at the center of the lawsuit, in a statement.

       She was held in the men’s unit at the jail for two weeks last May.

       “I’m glad that other trans people at the Jail will be treated with more dignity,” Hinton said.

       Rachel Cicurel, counsel for Hinton and an attorney with the Public Defender Service, said in a statement that she is “inspired by the courage Ms. Hinton showed in fighting back against the D.C. Department of Corrections, even while she was detained and at their mercy.”

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       Meanwhile, the District is under intense scrutiny for conditions at its aging detention facility. The Department of Corrections has faced multiple lawsuits over its handling of the novel coronavirus, including one filed by the ACLU of D.C. and the Public Defender Service. And critical inspections of the jail by the U.S. Marshals Service last year found evidence of “systemic” mistreatment of detainees and led to the transfer of hundreds of people to a federal prison in Pennsylvania.

       The settlement, said Legal Director Scott Michelman of the ACLU of D.C., provides some relief to transgender people behind bars.

       “All the changes that have come about as a result of this lawsuit are important steps to recognize the humanity and dignity of transgender people when they are in custody,” he said.