WoLF are representing Andrea Kelly. The ACLU's own filing, that you linked to, confirms that she requested only statistical data, not personally-identifying information:
> 4.8 On March 19, 2021, Requestor Andrea Kelly made a public records
request to Defendant Washington State Department of Corrections that sought the
following records:
> - "The number of transgender individuals currently incarcerated broken out by facility location."
> - "Number of incarcerated individuals who have been transferred from a
men's facility to a women's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of male incarcerated individuals who identify as female, non-
binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed at a Women's
prison facility."
> - "The number of incarcerated individuals who have transferred from a
Women's facility to a Men's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of female incarcerated individuals who identify as male, non-
binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed in a Men's
prison facility."
I do wonder if you read past that first paragraph you quoted, because the above section supports the facts of WoLF's article that you erroneously called out as "outright lying".
> “The names and ages of the transgender or gender non-conformists inmates moved to Purdy and the convictions they are serving time for.”
> “The names of all transgendered incarcerated individuals who have requested, received or are scheduled for gender reassignment surgery.”
However, even with only the requests made by Andrea Kelly, the DOC indented to provide private information about individuals in order to allow the requester to derive answers to their questions, as it doesn't have the statistics requested. This is what ACLU sued to prevent. See:
> 4.20 The Attorney General, on behalf of DOC, has indicated in discussions with DRW that DOC does not create records in response to requests for aggregate numerical information. Instead, the Attorney General explained that DOC will identify as responsive and provide records from which requestors may derive answers to their own questions. DOC has not provided DRW a list of what records have been identified by DOC as responsive to the requests. Based on DRW’s knowledge of DOC records, such records will likely include highly sensitive information about transgender, non-binary, gender non-conforming, and/or intersex inmates and former inmates.
The ACLU never asked the court to stop the government from responding with statistics, but the government doesn't have the statistics requested.
No, I think they are lying when they say the ACLU is suing to "prevent the public from receiving public records from the Washington State Department of Corrections on the number of inmates in state custody who identify as transgender and the number of male inmates who are housed in women’s facilities" because there are no such records and they are actually suing to prevent the release of people's identities. They are also lying by omission and competently misrepresenting the case by not mentioning what other kind of information was requested and how the government intends to respond to the request for the statistics it doesn't possess.
How about a more charitable interpretation, rather than accusing people of lying: ACLU's position is that these shouldn't be public records, WoLF's is that the government should release whatever public records are required to fulfil the request.
> 4.8 On March 19, 2021, Requestor Andrea Kelly made a public records request to Defendant Washington State Department of Corrections that sought the following records:
> - "The number of transgender individuals currently incarcerated broken out by facility location."
> - "Number of incarcerated individuals who have been transferred from a men's facility to a women's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of male incarcerated individuals who identify as female, non- binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed at a Women's prison facility."
> - "The number of incarcerated individuals who have transferred from a Women's facility to a Men's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of female incarcerated individuals who identify as male, non- binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed in a Men's prison facility."
I do wonder if you read past that first paragraph you quoted, because the above section supports the facts of WoLF's article that you erroneously called out as "outright lying".