Source: Women are Human
Last Updated 19:41:15 UTC Thursday, October 1, 2020
IE — Limerick, Munster. A teenager who was “born a male but identifies as a female” is facing four counts of making threats to kill or cause serious harm. The accused, who has demonstrated a pattern of criminal and extreme physical and sexual violence towards women, is eager to be held in female custody while awaiting trial.
Gardaí, the national police service of the Republic of Ireland, says 18-year-old Barbie Kardashian made threats of violence against two individuals in July, August and September of this year.
The youth was arrested on the night of Thursday, September 24, and has been remanded into custody.
At the time of his arrest, Mr Kardashian was free on bail on charges stemming from sexual assaults on two women.
According to gardaí, the accused young man “made some statements” on the date of his latest arrest “that she did intend to do some harm to herself.”
Michèle Finan, solicitor for Mr Kardashian, insists her client would be “exceptionally vulnerable in a prison setting,” and is “very anxious she be detained in a prison facility for females, as she identifies as a female.” The solicitor requested that her client’s “certificate of gender recognition” be submitted to Limerick District Court, which is hearing the case.
Presiding Judge Larkin Mary Larkin said: “It’s a matter for the prison authorities, I can only make a recommendation that all medical intervention and appropriate detention be given to her in the circumstances.”
Pattern of Abuse
The teen, whom Gript reveals was named Alejandro Gentile at birth, has demonstrated a pattern of severe abuse against women.
In 2012, the boy was made subject to a care order after violently attacking his own mother. The mother had fled to a women’s refuge with her eight-year-old son in 2010 to escape his abusive father. Staff at the refuge expressed concern about the child’s violence toward his mother. Mother and son moved into a rented accommodation after a year and a half, until he carried out the particularly brutal attack on his mother at age 10. The child was then placed into care.
He continued sharing plans to kill his mother, including a scheme detailed to an aftercare manager that involved obtaining his mother’s new address and gaining entry to the home. At the advice of gardaí, the mother recently fled to a different part of the country to ensure safety from her son.
The boy displayed violent and extreme sexual behaviors toward female care staff during his early teens, and maintained a list of care staff he intended to harm.
On May 1 of last year, the 17-year-old was a backseat passenger in a car when, suddenly and without provocation, he lunged forward and dug his nails into the eyes of the female care worker driving the vehicle. The teen wrapped his “legs around the victim’s head and chest, refusing to let go, and bit the care worker on the hand” while threatening to kill her. The care worker was left with torn eyelids. “Clumps” of hair had been ripped from her scalp. The woman had to be hospitalized.
Mr Kardashian expressed regret at having failed to kill the victim, telling gardaí that it had been “music to her ears to hear [the care worker] scream and cry.” He served five months in detention for the crime.
An assessment following the attack found that the youth did not have a mental illness.
Depraved Childhood History
However, the teen had been exposed to “extreme depravity and domestic violence” from a young age. His parents were said to have been “locked into a sadomasochistic relationship.” His mother described his father as violent and controlling.
The boy’s father had prevented his mother from breastfeeding her infant son or holding him when he cried. The father physically and emotionally abused his son throughout childhood. He eventually recruited his son to join him in the abuse of his mother, who had been the child’s “only source of benign interaction.”
The young man, who began identifying as female at age 15, has often expressed a wish to rape and murder women.
Mr Kardashian was the subject of a nationwide bulletin on September 24. The public was warned that he had been released into the community from a secure unit for children, and presented a “grave risk” to women.
The youth has “repeatedly expressed intention to take her own life with the date identified as being on her release from Oberstown detention centre.” However, he contended on several occasions before the court that the suicide threats were meant to help him get his way, and were never seriously intended.
Gardaí have said they will make “strenuous objections” if Mr Kardashian applies for bail.
Due to reporting restrictions, the Irish press has been unable to mention that Mr Kardashian is male, and describes the young man as a “teenage girl.”
UPDATE 19:41:15 UTC Thursday, October 1, 2020
On September 29, TheJournal.ie indicated that Mr Kardashian is in the women’s section of Limerick Prison, and made the day’s court appearance from there via video link.
In the face of national and international criticism, Elisa O’Donovan, Independent councillor for Limerick City West, doubled down in an October 1 tweet, reaffirming her ardent faith that “trans women are women” and pose no danger to women.
ACTION
To express your views on a man with a history of extreme violence against women being held in custody with women, contact the following:
Governor, Mr. Mark Kennedy
Address: Limerick Prison, Mulgrave Street, Limerick V94
Telephone: 061 204700
Fax: 061 415116
