A transgender woman says she was raped at a men's prison in Colorado just hours after a judge denied her request to keep her from a disciplinary unit, the Associated Press reported. 

According to the AP, Lindsay Saunders-Velez, 20, previously filed a lawsuit against Colorado’s corrections agency in July, saying she had been threatened, harassed and assaulted since she entered the prison system last spring for violating her plea deal in a menacing case. 

In April, Saunders-Velez's lawyers filed a request to a judge not to send her to a 30-day "punishment pod" for a disciplinary infraction. Her lawyers argued she could end up with inmates who had previously tormented her, the AP reported. 

But Chief United States District Judge Marcia S. Krieger rejected the request on April 20 citing Saunders-Velez had not "adequately" shown she would "likely suffer an imminent, irreparable harm."

Saunders-Velez's attorney, Paula Greisen, said they were going to continue the fight and that the issue was not "going to go away."

“This issue is not going to go away,” she said according to the AP. “We’re going to fight it until these individuals are treated with the respect they deserve.”

According to the AP, Saunders-Velez entered the foster care system in Colorado as a child and spent years in the state's youth corrections system. Last May, she was sentenced to prison for three years for violating the terms of a plea agreement on a felony menacing charge. Saunders-Velez said male inmates had frequently harassed her by pulling down a privacy screen shielding her as she used the bathroom in her cell. She filed a handwritten complaint in July arguing protection against cruel and unusual punishment. 

Saunders-Velez's complaint detailed that she had been transgender since the age of 4 and began hormone treatments in 2017, the AP reported. The complaint also stated that prison staff denied her request to be called Lindsay with female pronouns. Her requests to be searched by female prison guards and to buy women's undergarments were also reportedly rejected. 

Medical records submitted to the AP revealed Saunders-Velez was taken to the hospital with rectal and other injuries the day after the judge rejected her request to keep her from the "punishment pod." 

Prison Systemtransgender women