Can Women Ever Be Safe From Men? 

Women are not safe from men at home, on the street or even in prison. 

An article on October 31, 2024 from the AP reported that they found cases in all 50 states of guards luring or forcing women into areas of the prison without cameras to rape them. 

It is well known that at least a third of all women suffer violence from a man in an intimate relationship.  So it should be no surprise that up to 94% of women in prison have been victims of violence. https://survivedandpunished.org/quick-statistics/  53% of the women in prison are suffering from PTSD and brain injury from the violence. Some years ago when I was doing a lot of hands-on work with domestic violence victims including in prison, one woman said prison was the best place she had ever lived. She went from being beaten and raped by her father to being beaten and raped by her husband and being in prison was the most peace and safety she had ever known. I cried the entire drive home.

Accordingly another study found that 86 percent of women who have spent time in jail report that they had been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. As well, while women represented just 13 percent of the jail population between 2009 and 2011, they represented 67 percent of the victims of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization. https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/resource/86-percent-women-jail-are-sexual-violence-survivors  Women can’t escape violence even in jail. 

In prison, rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization in the time period examined were highest for female inmates (212 per 1,000), more than four times higher than male rates (43 per 1,000). Nancy Wolff, Cynthia L. Blitz, Jing Shi, Ronet Bachman, Jane A. Siegel, Sexual Violence Inside Prisons: Rates of Victimization, J Urban Health, 2006 May 23;83(5):835–848. doi: 10.1007/s11524-006-9065-2 By putting men in women’s prisons, the danger to women has increased.

Men identifying as women are also at risk, but harming women is not the solution. 

In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law S.B.132, The Transgender

Respect, Agency and Dignity Act; it became effective on January 1, 2021 (“S.B. 132”).

One of the justifications for the bill is that the rate of sexual assault in California’s prisons is 13 times higher for men identifying as women than for other men. Nationwide 40% of men identifying as women experience sexual abuse compared to 4% of other men. Even 38% of men who identify as women say they were harassed by staff.  So protection is justified. However to harm women to protect the men is not the way to do it.

The bill prohibits staff, contractors, and volunteers of the department from failing to consistently use the gender pronoun and honorific an individual has specified in verbal and written communications with or regarding that individual that involve the use of a pronoun or honorific. It does not apply to prisoners.  Yet women prisoners have reported that they are being punished with isolation and denial of parole for allegedly “misgendering” a person. As for honorific’s, no prison I know of in the U.S. uses honorifics when addressing inmates. They do not call them Mr. 341819 or Ms. Post.

S.B.132 created a preference system within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) that primarily benefits female-identifying biological males. The intent was to protect them from assault and abuse in the male prisons. The result has been that the law is being exploited by violent sex abusers who are biological males claiming to self-identify to gain access to female bodies.  The women are paying the price. 

Before the bill, when a person asked to transfer to a female facility, prison authorities could vet the suitability to be transferred and investigate the safety and rights of both the male and female prisoners. No more. Now men only have to self-ID. It cannot be questioned. The bill specifically says it does not require any actual steps to have been taken to effectuate any transition, self-identification alone will do it.

The men do not need a diagnosis, female name, any change in behavior or appearance, be taking hormones, have had any surgery.  Nothing. They just say so and they are not only transferred but given housing preference and are allowed to pick their cell mate. Women inmates who feel threatened or unsafe cannot move just because they ask but the males self-identifying as females can. Men’s subjective self-perception of health and safety overrides the health, safety, and well-being of females in the prison.

33.8% of these men who request transfer are registered sex offenders with a history of abusing women. The Bureau of Federal Prisons found in December 2021 that 48% of female identifying biological male inmates had committed sex offenses, compared to 11.6% of the general male inmate population. A Canadian study in 2020 reported that 64% of female identifying biological male inmates had a “current sex offense” conviction, and nearly 88% had a past sexual offense conviction. A United Kingdom study in 2019 found that 58.9% of female identifying biological male inmates committed sex offenses. After S.B.132 passed, a lot of men in California prisons were self-identifying as women and applying for transfer. This puts female prisoners who are already victims of male violence at tremendously increased risk.

When the women complained, they were punished for speaking – not the men for doing. The women were punished for “misgendering” (forced speech) and for filing a “false” grievance. By accusing women of “misgendering” authorities are gaslighting women and telling women they must deny their own life experience and eyes and say instead that the person with a penis is a female. The women were put in solitary, transferred, or had their release dates pushed back. For some women, undressing in front of a man or calling a man a woman is against their religion as well, so they are denied freedom of religion too.

While California authorities denied any victimization of women, in July 2024 a DOJ Victimization Report showed that of the 26.2% of female inmates who were victims of inmate-on-inmate violence nearly 18% of the assaults were perpetrated by female identifying biological males. Compared to the number of males who have been put into the women’s prisons, that is a very large percentage. It is impossible to know accurate numbers because CDCR does not keep accurate statistics but lumps sex and gender, completely different things, together thus obscuring who is the assailant and who is the victim. That is a feature not a bug.

The women have suffered from flashbacks, anxiety, panic attacks, despair, depression, and other PTSD symptoms. In one CA prison, a male named Michael Contreras was in prison for murder and when transferred to a women’s prison attempted to rape an inmate and strangled an elderly woman inmate.

Of course not all men who self-identify as women are sexual abusers.  But as women have warned, men who are sexual abusers will self-identify as women to have access to women in prison. One of the provisions in the law prohibits officials from assessing a “prospective transferee’s sincerity in self-identifying their gender identities or their true intentions,” even when those requesting to transfer have histories of abuse. Those women have no way to protect themselves – an abuser’s wet dream.

Men may be placed in a housing facility of their choice, no matter if they have male genitalia and do not present themselves as women. The women in California who have filed suit are asking that the men asking for transfer have some kind of facts and history e.g. taking female hormones, have a female name, living as a female, change their looks, and have their penis removed.  If men really had to cosplay as a woman in a male prison for some time before being transferred, they would not do it. Another requirement would be that the person have not been convicted of raping, beating, or killing women.

A few years ago, I represented a Native American two spirited person who was in serious danger in the male prison.  He had lived as a woman for a long time and was not a sexual predator.  He should have been moved but was not.

Inspector General Report on the one-year anniversary of the law.

In August 2023 a report was issued on the implementation of the Act by the Office of the Inspector General Independent Prison Oversight. (Special Review:  The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s Implementation of the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act.) Ironically in Arizona we have tried several terms to pass a Women’s Dignity Act for women in prison to be provided with feminine hygiene items among other thing and we can’t even get that passed.

In the report, the OIG acknowledges that women inmates expressed fear of living with men. Been there; done that; didn’t turn out so well. The very inadequate response was that the prison has policies for dealing with internal violence (that mostly don’t work as we all know) and the women can request a bed change (for which they receive no special consideration as the men do); the women can be put in restrictive housing (punish the victim); and the women can file a grievance after which they can be charged with filing a “false” grievance.

The OIC admitted that lots of “consensual” sex was going on in the prison which is against the rules but that no abusive sexual allegations were substantiated. But to be substantiated, an independent witness had to have seen the alleged act – similar to previous laws and those in some Muslim countries today where to qualify as a rape, two or more men have to have seen it and testify.  Even if an inmate did see it, inmates commonly refuse to admit to anything as it will only get them in further trouble with the administration and other inmates. So women really have no possibility of redress.

Women inmates also reported they witnessed the men abusing other prisoners including making one woman kneel in his presence. Only two of these complaints were substantiated.  Just like on the outside.

The OIC found that no criteria exist on how to evaluate those requesting transfer to a women’s prison. OIC admitted that the administration when investigating a request to transfer to a female prison cannot consider a factor present at the prison the person wishes to go to e.g. that the woman they assaulted is there, that their wife is there, that they are a single or serial rapist or murderer of women because women are there. One doesn’t need too many brain cells to see the problem with this.  Women alleged and men admitted that men are lining up to declare female self-identify in order to transfer to a women’s prison to have access to women’s bodies. 

Women told the officials the men would lie to get to them; women told the officials that the men only wanted to have access for sex; women begged the department to screen for abuse of women; women suggested there be a minimum level of transition i.e. take female hormones before and after. Women said they can’t work on rehabilitation when they have to fear for their safety every day. Women reported that they had to leave all the activities they were doing because men were now there. All their concerns and suggestions were ignored. As usual.

CDCR asks the male inmate his concerns about living with women but do not listen to women’s concerns about living with men. The state admitted they could not know or even ask the sincerity of the person requesting the transfer and that as the process got started, inmates told other inmates so they could game the system to get transferred. To pretend that men do not have a well-documented history of violence against women is to ignore 5,000 years of reality.

When the transferees arrived, they were treated better than women – men always are. When I was traveling a lot internationally, I was often mistaken for a man in business class or at a posh hotel. I let them think that because I was treated so much better. When I left, I told them the truth.

The OIC admitted that bed changes were inequitable and inconsistent. Bed changes requested by transferees were granted based on their subjective “perception” so the transferee could choose their victims, and the victims could not escape.

While the state did not substantiate any of the women’s sexual abuse allegations, they did agree that at least two “consensual” acts led to violence.  Women can attest to how often “consent” is not.  But at least three documented instances were transferees exhibiting their penis to staff or inmates. Exhibiting your penis in public is a crime and it was documented by staff yet not one of them was charged. The men were given discipline but remained in the women’s prison.

Women reported that the men solicited sex acts. The state admitted there was a potential for pregnancy and in fact distributed condoms in the women’s prison before the transfers. Penal Code 6500, that went into effect in 2015, required CDCR to expand the availability of condoms in all state prisons, including female institutions.  If sex between inmates is prohibited even if  “consensual” why were they distributing condoms before males who self-identified as females were moved into female prisons? You know the answer. They claim they could not substantiate any pregnancies. 

OIC admitted that a video showed a transferee hitting a woman and claimed that another video showed a woman abusing a man, but it didn’t say by doing what just that they defined it as abuse. But even if the woman prisoner described the assault in detail, OIC did not substantiate it without an eyewitness – a nearly impossible requirement.

In one paragraph OIC claimed that no victims were punished but then admitted later in the report that two who had participated in “consensual” sex were put into isolation as was one male who alleged he was a victim. Nothing was referred to prosecution – not even exhibiting a penis to the staff.

The OIC were unable to ascertain the number and types of grievances because the prison did not identify grievances by sex but only by gender so they could not identify if women complained about transferees or other women. That is one of the problems of using the term gender that applies to sexual stereotypes as opposed to using the biological term of sex. Accurate statistics are impossible to obtain. 

Somehow, the OIC found five grievances and said in one that the male grievance was never investigated though he filed three times. No documentation existed that a woman had even filed though her family got a cease-and-desist order from the court outside. Yet the OIG claim the grievance system is an avenue of complaint and found no problems with the grievance system.

CDCR may deny a housing request based on management or security concerns. However, under the new law, CDCR must give serious consideration to the perceptions of health and safety of the person making the request, and under no circumstances can the denial be based on any discriminatory reason, including anatomy, physical characteristics, and sexual orientation. So the male self-identifying as female does not have to have done anything but make a verbal claim. The definition of gender in the law includes gender fluid so a person can wake up one morning and claim to be a woman and get to a women’s prison.  And then wake up there and claim to be a man again – which is precisely what they are doing. 

Less than a year after the OIC report, Tremaine Carroll, a man with a lengthy record of criminal violence, was indicted for two rapes and witness intimidation of the third victim after he had been put into a women’s prison. This is exactly what women warned of and exactly what officials and politicians ignored.

I propose that women self-identify as men tomorrow.  Go into work, say you self-identify as a man, demand a two-thirds increase in your pay, the corner office, and your own private secretary for your health and safety. Let me know how that goes.  We all know you would get nothing except fired or committed or both.

California is not alone in this folly.  

Demi Minor is a man who identified as a woman and was put into a women’s prison in New Jersey.  Two inmates became pregnant.  He was returned to a male facility. A woman in an Illinois prison has filed a civil lawsuit claiming she was raped by a male who self-identified and that state officials covered it up. She was punished for filing what the officials deemed a “false” complaint under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The officials of course called it consensual as they do whenever women are raped. 

Since men believe they own and control women’s bodies (see Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), so no woman can complain she did not consent to sex. She consented by being born a female. Middle school boys are now wearing t-shirts that say “your body-my choice.”  The Supreme Court has said that is the law of the land and the incoming administration headed by a convicted rapist won’t disagree and plans to put a child sex trafficker in as attorney general. 

Another lawsuit is against Rikers Island jail in New York when women complained that a man was posing as a woman to sexually assault female prisoners.  As usual, authorities did not listen, and he then raped one of the women. 

The problem is male violence and that is what a solution should focus on.

These laws have prioritized the safety of men who self-identify as women over biological women. That’s misogyny and patriarchy such as we witnessed in the recent presidential election.

Male violence directed at both women and men who identify as women is what needs to be addressed but that is ignored.  Instead women are put directly in harm’s way by giving violent men an avenue directly to them – even locked in the same cell.  The lawsuit asks that the law in CA return to how it was before i.e. those requesting transfer be vetted and show their sincerity, reason for the transfer request, and that they will not be a danger to the women in the facility. That is not too much to ask. 

But our society has made known its complete lack of concern for the safety and welfare of women by the election of a convicted rapist who participated with Jeffery Epstein in his sex trafficking schemes.  Men voted to harm their own mothers, wives and daughters and women voted to harm themselves as well as their mothers and daughters. Men let women die in emergency rooms rather than treat them for sepsis. Any man they did that to would sue and win a malpractice complaint (or his relatives would) but women’s lives are of no value in the U.S. where misogyny reigns supreme.