Source: Women are Human
US — California. Incarcerated women forced to share cells, shower with and be naked in the presence of male inmates – many of whom have intact male genitals and some of whom sport beards – are suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The women say SB 132, also known as The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, “cannot be applied in any manner that avoids violating the federal and state constitutional rights” of incarcerated women.
According to a complaint filed at the United States District Court yesterday by Women’s Liberation Front on women who are currently or were previously incarcerated, at least 23 male inmates have been transferred into women’s prisons under SB 132, which was passed into law on January 1, and “several hundred” other men have requested placement in women’s prisons.
Women incarcerated in California are plagued with constant “fear, anxiety, depression, and/or post-traumatic stress disorder.” Those sharing a cell with both a man and another woman have been making “sleep schedules among the women so that a woman is on watch to try to prevent rape by the male cellmate.”
Krystal Gonzalez, an inmate at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF) who has joined the legal action, was “sexually assaulted by a man transferred to her unit under S.B. 132,” the court filing says.
Tomiekia Johnson, another complainant whose story was documented in “Incarcerated Women Speak: Tomiekia’s Story,” says her first cellmate upon transfer to general population was a “vicious, dangerous biological male inmate.” The former police officer, who was sentenced to 50 years at CCWF after her abusive husband was killed during a struggle for a gun, says she was told by a sergeant that the decision to house her with a male was “done on purpose, as a bet, as a joke to see how long a former police officer could last in that type of environment.”
The complaint points out that a significant proportion of incarcerated women are survivors of sexual and family violence, and that such violence is most often perpetuated by men against members of the female sex. Male prison staff rape women at high rates, and the presence of male inmates they can get no time away from compounds the rape crisis, the court filing explains.
“Male patterns of violence and sexual offending are not lower in the subset of men who claim a ‘gender identity of female’ than in the overall population of men.” In fact, the complaint continues, “Male offenders who identify as ‘transgender’ have higher rates of sexual offenses in their criminal backgrounds than the general male offender population.”
On the other hand, “Women comprise less than ten percent of the California prison population” and “are much more likely than incarcerated men to be serving sentences for non-violent offenses and to be mothers motivated to earn release due to desire to reunite with children,” the complaint says. As a result, “incarcerated women are far less likely to behave violently in prison than men, and the security measures and protocols utilized by CDCR therefore differ significantly in women’s correctional facilities than in men’s correctional facilities.”
Women in California prisons are not protected from such “elevated risks” as “the consequences of sex with men (such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases)” or “being raped and sexually assaulted” or “sexually harassed by men.” Additionally, the women have been robbed of their “privacy and dignity by” being compelled to “sleep, shower or otherwise be naked in the presence of (or exposed to the naked bodies of) incarcerated men.”
The complainants say the CDCR has infringed on women’s right to equal protection under the law by denying “opportunity for rehabilitation in a single-sex environment comparable to the single-sex environment provided for men,” despite Rule 11 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which calls for men and women to be detained in separated facilities, as well as “[d]ecades of research” showing “female offenders fare best in rehabilitative environments away from men” and female-only prisons are “effective, and cost-effective, penological methods of enabling female offenders to work through the complex issues involved in their offending and have the best chance of rehabilitation, release, and assimilation into society.”
While the complaint acknowledges that SB 132 seeks to serve a “legitimate or important purpose (preventing sexual victimization of some men who are at high risk of victimization by other men),” the “means by which that purpose is served […] results in those subgroups of men being safer from sexual victimization only by concurrently making women less safe from sexual victimization.”
The practice is also discriminatory, not giving the same considerations to the housing preferences of “men and women without the ‘right kind’ of identity” the same as it does “those inmates who do declare specific identities.” This includes other subsets of men who are at statistically heightened risk of sexual violence in men’s prisons, such as gay and bisexual men and men convicted of sexual offenses against minors, the complaint further asserts.
Other complainants named on the lawsuit are the organization Woman II Woman, a non-profit organized by formerly incarcerated women to provide dignified re-entry services, parole hearing preparation, and advocacy for incarcerated women; Janine Chandler, a domestic violence survivor and observant Muslim who says being housed with men is a violation of her right to free exercise of religion; and Nadia Romero, a survivor of severe sexual and physical abuse and an devout Christian who says her ability to practice her beliefs are impaired by being housed with men. Several anonymous women are also parties in the complaint.
SB 132 requires the CDCR to ask each inmate privately during intake whether they “identify as transgender, nonbinary, or intersex, and their gender pronoun and honorific.” Inmates are then housed “at a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference.” Although the collective of congenital conditions of sexual development that were previously known as “intersex,” the law does not call for medical exams to verify the declaration of intersex as an identity. The law prohibits consideration of anatomy in housing, explaining:
Gender transition is a deeply personal experience that may involve some combination of social transition, legal transition, medical transition, or none of these. Some transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people experience gender dysphoria that requires medical treatment, while others do not experience gender dysphoria. Due to safety concerns, inconsistent medical and mental health care, insufficient education and resources, and other factors, incarceration often serves as a barrier to gender transition.
The complaint seeks judicial declaration that SB 132 is unconstitutional and calls for a permanent injunction against the directives contained in the legislation.
Can we please get as many likes on this video as possible?
These women’s voices need to be heard. Thanks, @WomensLibFront, for doing this.@whrcu @whrcuk @DeclarationOn @NoXY_USA @NoXYinXXprisons @SaveWomensSport @TERFCollective @WomenReadWomen https://t.co/yS7DSHwrfW
— Kara Dansky (@KDansky) November 17, 2021
