Oregon to pay $295K to trans woman imprisoned until 2049

As the Trump administration has stopped considering gender identity in its prison policies, Oregon officials will pay $295,000 to settle a lawsuit from a transgender woman who said she was abused while housed in a men’s prison, where a judge later found she was likely subjected to repeated harm.

Zera Lola Zombie filed a federal lawsuit in 2021 alleging abuse during her time at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, in eastern Oregon. While she was later transferred to the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, a women’s prison in Wilsonville, south of Portland, the Oregon Department of Corrections settled the case this week.

Related: Oregon Trans Inmate Alleges Abuse by Guards in Violation of Court Order

The 41-year-old was previously found guilty of manslaughter and first-degree assault following the death of a girlfriend in 2014, the Hermiston Herald reported. She is serving a sentence that runs through 2049. Zombie transitioned while in prison around 2020, but then suffered “ongoing harassment and verbal, mental, and psychological abuse by both prisoners and staff as a result of her sex, gender, and gender identity,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court.

In 2023, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ordered her to be classified as a vulnerable party and directed guards to halt certain practices, including cavity searches, and that neither prisoners nor staff at men’s prisons could see her in the nude.

Related: Trump just rolled out a cruel anti-trans prison policy doctors are calling ‘dangerous’

Her attorneys said she was assaulted in the past and that guards had “paraded” her around the prison in her undergarments. She was also at one point strip-searched by guards and forced to provide a urine sample in front of them during a drug search.

After being forced to share a cell with a registered sex offender serving a 40-year sentence, she said she was “terrorized” repeatedly by her cellmate, but told to “get over it” by a guard, according to court filings, The Oregonian reported. A judge in 2023 issued a temporary restraining order and ruled she was likely “repeatedly subjected to abuse, including sexual assault, by male inmates with whom she is housed.”

Related: Appeals court clears path to move trans women into men’s prisons despite sexual assault risk

The case comes as courts and policymakers continue to wrestle with how transgender women are housed in custody. A recent federal appeals court decision has allowed officials to move forward, at least for now, with transferring some transgender women to men’s prisons, while requiring inmates to prove individually that such placements would put them at risk of harm. The Trump administration has moved to restrict gender-affirming care in prisons, including requiring some inmates to taper off hormone treatment, a change physicians told The Advocate could have serious health consequences.

The settlement awards $95,000 to Zombie, with attorneys receiving the remaining $200,000.

Related: The horrific reality of transgender individuals in Texas prisons

“We take all allegations of sexual assault seriously and are committed to addressing them thoroughly and responsibly," Amber Campbell, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Corrections, wrote in an email to The Oregonian. “We uphold our duty to protect those in our custody, guided by a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse and harassment. Prevention remains a priority, and we are dedicated to eliminating sexual assault and misconduct in Oregon’s correctional facilities.”