A new interim director has been appointed to lead the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) as President Donald Trump seeks to implement a crackdown on transgender inmates being housed in facilities that do not correspond with their biological sex.
William W. Lothrop has been named the new BOP director following the resignation of Colette Peters on Inauguration Day. The timeline for the Trump administration to appoint a permanent replacement remains uncertain.
“As we face ongoing challenges, including staffing shortages and operational issues, I am committed to working alongside you to find real solutions that strengthen our facilities,” Lothrop stated. “We will continue collaborating with our law enforcement partners and stakeholders to maintain robust programming and support services for inmates.”
On his first day in office, Trump announced a temporary hiring freeze for federal positions and reversed former President Joe Biden’s ban on private prisons. His executive order, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” defines sex strictly as male or female based on biological characteristics, mandating that federal agencies adopt this definition in their policies and practices.
The order specifies that individuals should be housed in federal prisons according to their biological sex rather than their gender identity, impacting the approximately 2,300 transgender inmates currently in federal facilities across the U.S. Additionally, it halts federal funding for transgender procedures and treatments for inmates.
“The Attorney General shall ensure that the Bureau of Prisons revises its policies concerning medical care to be consistent with this order, and shall ensure that no Federal funds are expended for any medical procedure, treatment, or drug for the purpose of conforming an inmate’s appearance to that of the opposite sex,” the order reads.
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During the Biden administration, several U.S. states adopted policies allowing transgender inmates to be housed according to their gender identity. In 2021, California became the first state to enact such a policy, leading to a significant increase in requests for housing based on gender identity, with a 234% rise in the transgender inmate population.
In January 2022, New York state revised its policies to allow transgender individuals to select their prison housing, while Colorado reached a legal settlement to house biological men in women’s facilities, part of a case involving 400 transgender women.
Fox News Digital previously reported multiple cases of male inmates, serving sentences for serious offenses, being transferred to women’s facilities. Many of these inmates have received taxpayer-funded medical procedures for gender transition.
Lothrop, who was formerly the BOP deputy director, is replacing Peters, who was appointed by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 and was viewed as a reform-minded outsider tasked with addressing an agency plagued by staff shortages, corruption, misconduct, and abuse.
The BOP employs nearly 36,000 staff members and oversees more than 155,000 federal inmates. The BOP director position does not require Senate confirmation, according to legal news service Law 360. During her tenure, Peters faced challenges in achieving results despite appearing before House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
During the final stages of Trump’s campaign, he pledged to combat what he termed left-wing gender ideology and ran a successful ad campaign criticizing his opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris, for her role in facilitating sex change procedures for incarcerated individuals in California.
“Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you,” stated the narrator in Trump’s campaign advertisement.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House and BOP for comment.