Female prisoners sue California for censoring complaints about anatomically male transfers. #believewomen
Who could’ve seen this coming?
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) is violating the First Amendment rights of female prisoners by removing male references from their complaints about transgender women being moved into their facilities, according to a gender-critical feminist group.
It’s the most unusual claim in the federal lawsuit filed this week by the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF) on behalf of inmates Janine Chandler, Krystal Gonzalez, Tomiekia Johnson and Nadia Romero, who allege they are victims of either sexual or domestic violence.
They are challenging the constitutionality of California Senate Bill 132, which has been in effect for 10 months. It lets prisoners choose their gender identity for purposes of placement — and even bodily searches — regardless of sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy.
When Romero filed a complaint about being “grabbed by a man in her unit,” and Gonzalez requested single-sex housing after a transgender inmate sexually assaulted her, prison officials described their attackers as transgender women or females.
Being housed with self-identified transgender prisoners who are anatomically male also constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment, and violates their 14th Amendment equal protection rights, the suit claims.
It puts biological women, whose facilities are already overcrowded, at “substantially increased risk of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and physical violence,” as well as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and psychological fear of such harms — an “unofficial punishment.”