NC Court of Appeals reverses order to transfer transgender inmate to women's prison

Virginia Bridges, The Charlotte Observer on Apr 2, 2025

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina Court of Appeals ruling has reversed a Wake County judge’s order allowing a transgender woman inmate to be transferred to a women’s prison.

The ruling was released Wednesday morning.

In 2023, a Wake County judge ordered that Ashlee Inscoe, a transgender woman, be transferred to a women’s prison.

Inscoe’s attorneys argued that she was assigned male at birth, but was born intersex. Her birth certificate was updated by the Office of Vital Records in May 2023 to list her sex as female, following reproductive surgery she had in September 2022, The News & Observer reported.

Inscoe, who has been in and out of prison for most of her adult life, has alleged that she’s faced regular harassment and mistreatment since she was most recently incarcerated in 2017.

Wake County Superior Court Judge A. Graham Shirley agreed Inscoe should be in a women’s prison and ordered that she be transferred in 2023. State attorneys appealed on behalf of prison officials, pausing her transfer.

Attorneys representing the state argue in court documents that an N.C. Department of Adult Correction committee made the right decision when it denied Inscoe’s request to be transferred to a women’s prison.

The Division Transgender Accommodation Review Committee evaluated medical information, criminal records and other information and denied Inscoe’s request. It concluded Inscoe’s “gender identity history has been complicated by various and repeated unreliable, inconsistent, and at times demonstrably false reports.”

Medical testing, including a CT scan, and an examination, revealed Iscoe has male anatomy, the committee concluded. Inscoe never provided any proof that she was intersex and declined an offer for genetic testing, according to court documents.

The committee “also noted concerns to the safety of other inmates if Petitioner were housed in a female facility since Petitioner is a registered sex offender based upon a conviction for sexual assault on a teenage girl,” according to court documents. The committee’s decision was also based on its consideration of Inscoe’s own safety and the availability of programs and services, the state said in court documents.

The Court of Appeals three-judge panel agreed that the Wake judge made an error in his ruling and infringed on the Department of Correction’s authority to decide where prisoners live. But the judges clashed on other aspects in two separate written orders.

“In considering Petitioner’s request for transfer, the Department was required to exercise its discretion to deal with actual physical realities of both Petitioner and other inmates, and its discretion is not limited by Petitioner’s personal ‘material reality,’ as she describes it, or her ‘gender identity,’” wrote Judge Donna Stroud in an opinion signed by fellow Republican Judge Valerie Zachary.

Judge Toby Hampson, a Democrat, wrote his own opinion. In it, he criticized how his colleagues’ opinion went beyond the narrow legal issue and commented on Inscoe’s gender identity.

“Words matter,” Hampson wrote. While female pronouns weren’t an actual issue in the case, the court made it one, he said.

The other judges’ opinion also revealed private information that was filed under seal, Hampson wrote.

“Its only purpose in the majority opinion is to, again, attempt to undermine Petitioner’s gender identity,” Hampson wrote.

Inscoe’s attorney, Elizabeth Simpson, agreed. The ruling is based on “political hatred” not legal reasoning, said Simpson, who works for civil rights organization Emancipate NC.

“Ashlee Inscoe is a woman. That is her ‘material reality’ in every sense. The Court of Appeals’ majority opinion is mean and it is inaccurate,” Simpson said in an email.

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Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.

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