A convicted January 6 rioter, now pardoned by Trump, has filed a federal lawsuit against the United States, claiming that prison doctors “wrongly injected” him with female hormones that caused his body to change against his will.
The case, filed September 5 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes from Andrew Quentin Taake, a Texas man sentenced to prison for assaulting officers during the attack on the Capitol.
After being pardoned by Trump, Taake was re-arrested on a 2016 charge of soliciting a minor. That case is ongoing.
Taake’s complaint
#BREAKING Andrew Quentin Taake was arrested by FBI Houston today in connection to the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol. Taake is charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, among other federal charges. #HouNews pic.twitter.com/8l0jFIW8R6
— FBI Houston (@FBIHouston) July 23, 2021
According to the 30-page complaint, Taake now alleges that he began noticing physical changes shortly after medical staff at a federal facility gave him what he thought were standard treatments. He claims prison officials never told him the injections contained estrogen or other female hormones.
Over time, Taake says he experienced breast development, testicular shrinkage, and other “feminizing” effects. The lawsuit describes these changes as a violation of his constitutional rights, calling it “forced medical experimentation on a captive population.”
Taake had a preexisting medical condition: hypogonadism, a condition characterized by severely low testosterone levels. According to his federal lawsuit filed in September 2025, doctors diagnosed Taake’s hypogonadism as early as 2016.
His prescribed treatment involved weekly testosterone injections. However, the lawsuit alleges that while incarcerated, doctors administered him estrogen injections instead, which contradicted his prescribed treatment and led to unintended physical changes.
Taake insists he never consented to gender-affirming care or hormone therapy. Instead, he argues that prison doctors ignored his concerns and failed to provide proper medical explanations.
The complaint alleges that the Bureau of Prisons and its director, Colette S. Peters, acted with negligence and deliberate indifference, subjecting Taake to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
The lawsuit goes further, linking the alleged injections to emotional and psychological distress. “The plaintiff slowly became a woman in prison without his knowledge or consent,” the filing states, adding that Taake continues to suffer from anxiety, depression, and identity confusion as a result.
Taake is seeking unspecified damages and medical relief to halt the hormonal changes.
Taake’s J6 conviction
Taake, who was arrested in 2021 after federal investigators said he attacked Capitol police officers with pepper spray and a whip-like weapon, has already drawn media attention for his role in the riot. Now, his case adds an unusual twist to the growing number of lawsuits filed by January 6 defendants against the federal government. While many have complained about conditions in the D.C. jail or alleged political persecution, few have claimed involuntary medical transformation.
Taake contends that inmates are routinely given injections without sufficient explanation or informed consent. He argues that such practices endanger vulnerable prisoners and could constitute systemic abuse. His attorneys claim that if proven true, the allegations represent a major scandal for the Bureau of Prisons.
Taake’s lawsuit faces steep challenges. He will have to prove both that he received hormone injections without consent and that the physical changes he describes were caused by those injections rather than other medical conditions. Federal agencies typically enjoy broad immunity from prisoner lawsuits unless plaintiffs can show clear Constitutional violations.
The case is in its early stages, and the government has not yet filed a response. It remains unclear whether the court will allow the claim to proceed to discovery or dismiss it at the outset.
