Transgender Woman Charged With Raping Female Inmates In Prison

A transgender woman is accused of sexually assaulting four inmates at an all-female UK prison facility.

Karen White, 52, is a previously convicted sex offender who was serving life in prison New Hall Prison, in Wakefield. This week, White admitted to sexually assaulting a female inmate three times, between February and December 2016, after being sent to an all-female prison facility. White was charged with assaulting four women  but denied them. The court heard all four of the incidents happened between September and November of last year.

Before White transitioned to a woman, she went by her male name Stephen Wood and raped a woman back in August 2003, which she admitted to on Thursday, Sept. 6 in Leeds Crown Court. Last month, White admitted to abusing the woman from February and December, when she was remanded to New Hall Prison – the all-female prison. At the time she identified as a woman but did have her gender reassignment surgery. While at the all-female prison, she assaulted more women.

In one of the incidents, the prosecutor says, “The defendant would stand very close to [the female inmate], touch her arm and wink at her.  Her penis was erect and sticking out of the top of her trousers.” Other incidents include White having women fondle her breasts in padded bras, White kissing another inmate on the neck and pressing her penis against another inmate.

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White claimed she could not be found guilty because she is not attracted to women and had been suffering from erectile dysfunction. Following the assaults, White was transferred to HM Prison Leeds, a men’s jail. According to The Sun, White began identifying as a woman in 2014 but was never diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She also was a drag artist, not transgender. White also has an ex-wife and son. In 2001, White was jailed for 18 months for two offenses of indecent assault and gross indecency with a child.

Dr. Nicola Williams, the spokeswoman for the organization Fair Play for Women, which campaigns to preserve women’s spaces, was disgruntled that White was placed in the jail. “This just shows that the risk assessments that prisons do are not good enough because it’s allowed a rapist, with a penis, into a women’s prison,” Williams told the Sun. “And women have been sexually assaulted. It is absolutely outrageous. We have to change the prison guidance now. There should be no fully intact male-bodied prisoners, ever, in women’s prisons.”