Transgender Women (Men) in Women’s Prisons

Remember the applause for President Trump during his inaugural speech when he stated there are only two genders: male and female. His audience was ecstatic, given that we have seen innumerable attempts to create multiple genders and the wellbeing, not only of children, but adults, too, has been challenged.

Apparently, there is a judge who was not convinced of the wisdom of Trump’s Executive Order:

A U.S. judge has temporarily blocked federal prison officials from transferring a transgender woman to a men’s facility and denying her access to gender-affirming care in accordance with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump, her lawyers said on Thursday. The temporary restraining order was issued by U.S. District Judge George O’Toole in Boston on Sunday while the inmate’s case was sealed in what appeared to be the first lawsuit challenging an order Trump signed on Jan. 20, his first day back in office, targeting what he called “gender ideology extremism.” Trump’s order directed the federal government to only recognize two, biologically distinct sexes, male and female; house transgender women in men’s prisons; and cease funding for any gender-affirming medical care for inmates.

To clarify, a transgender woman is supposedly a man.

It’s important to emphasize that the most recent, legitimate science does not support “transgenderism.” Gender dysphoria, in rare situations, appears in 3 to 5-year-old children, and the children usually grow out of it. When the symptoms appear in teenagers and adults, these patients usually suffer from other mental problems and are often seriously depressed. Instead of encouraging them to participate in a therapy with no hidden agenda, these people are often persuaded that they are transgender.

So, why is transgenderism an issue in our prisons?

The argument is made that the transgender women (biological men) are harassed when they are transferred to male populations. It’s difficult to sympathize with their situations, since there is no way to verify if they are truly transgender. In fact, if they simply made the choice not to identify as transgender women, they’d likely have no problems in a male facility. But we are supposed to sympathize with their choices and incarcerate them with women.

Housing them with women creates more serious problems. We are essentially putting biological males in female facilities. Not only are the biological women subject to harassment by the males, they are in physical danger:

Women who allege they were raped in a California prison by a biological male claiming to be transgender will be compelled to refer to the defendant using she/her pronouns, a Madera County judge ruled last week, further complicating a case centered on a crime that was emboldened from the outset by the government. Tremaine Carroll allegedly raped multiple inmates while at Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla after securing placement there by self-identifying as transgender. The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, which took effect in January 2021, allows California inmates to be placed in a facility corresponding with the sex they say they are. Under the law, a prisoner need not be on hormones, have had surgery, or undergo a psychological evaluation to be approved. The government considers their testimony sufficient. [Italics are mine.]

If you are wondering how many people we are talking about, here is the data:

Of the 10,025 people in federal women’s prisons, 1,529 are men or 15.3%. Of the 143,714 people in federal men’s prisons, 744 are women or 0.5%. So-called transgender females are thus greater over represented in federal prisons relative to their share of women.

If action isn’t taken to discredit transgenderism, the numbers are likely to grow.

There are arguments for and against Trump’s order:

[Dee]Farmer, who now runs the prison advocacy organization Fight4Justice, said she viewed the order ‘as an infringement upon the right to be safe from sexual assault.’ She, and other formerly incarcerated trans women, as well as advocates fighting on behalf of transgender people, say this order poses a serious risk to the health and safety of the thousands of transgender people behind bars. For supporters of the order, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, a self-described conservative Christian legal advocacy group, it's a much-needed change to standards that put cisgender women in female facilities in danger. ‘We're very pleased to see President Trump restore sanity to this issue and to make sure that we have a proper understanding of sex, and that that understanding flows down to schools, prisons, other places where the privacy and safety of women are paramount,’ said Matt Sharp, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom.

We don’t “owe” transgender care to the males who are imprisoned. They have made a choice about their identity, and that choice puts them at risk of rape if they are openly trans in a male prison. In a women’s facility, however, the women are at risk of rape and abuse if transgender women (biological men) are housed with them. These women are already serving time for their crimes, and the additional burden of men housed in their facility is added punishment. I don’t care whether these men are uncomfortable.

They’ve made their choice.