A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has thrown out a mandatory injunction that would have rewritten Oregon’s prison placement rules for inmates who identify as transgender women. In S.D. v. Reese, No. 26-4872, decided 17 September 2026, Judges Collins, VanDyke, and Tung (opinion by Judge Tung) vacated the District of Oregon’s preliminary injunction and directed that the certified class be decertified. The mandate issued forthwith.

The appellate court held the district court’s “default presumption” finding clearly erroneous — and that class-wide relief was not justified on this record.
Citizen impact: Women held at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility — Oregon’s only state women’s prison — are not under a live federal order requiring a starting presumption that male inmates who identify as women be placed there. Individual Eighth Amendment claims can still proceed; the class injunction and class certification fell. Parallel prison-sex fights continue in other jurisdictions (Scotland’s CSOH 59; Canada’s CAWSBAR CD-100 challenge).

What the district court ordered

Named plaintiffs J.F. and S.D. sued Oregon Department of Corrections officials alleging Eighth Amendment risk of harm in men’s prisons. Magistrate Judge Mark D. Clarke issued a provisional class and, after reconsideration, an amended mandatory injunction requiring case-by-case reviews that begin with a presumption of placement consistent with gender identity, plus shower, search, and reporting directives. The Ninth Circuit had already stayed that injunction pending appeal (20 August 2026).

What the Ninth Circuit held

Per the published opinion PDF:

  • The injunction rested on a finding that Oregon applied a “default presumption” placing “transgender women” in men’s prisons. That finding was clearly erroneous — ODOC evidence showed individualized Transgender and Intersex Committee reviews, infirmary holds for new admissions, and placement numbers that undercut a blanket-presumption inference (of ~117 inmates so labelled, 26 requested women’s-estate transfer; 8 were housed there).
  • Even assuming a presumption, the record did not clearly show deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of harm justifying a mandatory class injunction; stale nationwide DOJ victimization statistics and individual declarations did not support class-wide relief.
  • Commonality failed under Rule 23; the class of “all current and future transgender women in ODOC custody” was improperly certified. Scattered individualized placement decisions are not a uniform policy of deliberate indifference.
  • Winter equities and public interest favoured the State: the order risked channeling more than a hundred inmates — including a named plaintiff convicted of extreme sexual violence against a disabled woman — into the sole women’s facility.

Disposition: preliminary injunction vacated; class decertified; remanded; mandate issued forthwith.

Contested: Plaintiffs’ counsel say risk of assault in men’s prisons remains and merits litigation continues. Oregon’s Attorney General welcomed the individualized-assessment holding while publicly distancing from the opinion’s descriptive language. This piece tracks the judgment’s holdings — not advocacy slogans.

Bottom line

Do not write “Oregon banned transgender inmates from women’s prisons.” Do not invent a Supreme Court grant. The verified appellate outcome is vacatur of a class-wide presumption injunction and decertification on 17 September 2026.