Times have changed and apparently, so have women’s prisons.
Women’s rights activist, Kara Dansky, is criticizing women’s prisons that allow transgender people who are biologically male to be housed in their facilities.
Dansky states that her organization had reports of “terrified” female inmates, citing that a California women’s prison now distributes condoms after an inmate got pregnant behind bars.
“We approximate that 20 of them have been granted. About 20 men are being housed in women’s prisons now, as far as we know. We suspect that none of the applications have been denied. We also know that in Washington state, approximately nine male convicted felons are being housed in a women’s prison,” says Kara. “One of those men has been convicted of multiple murders of women, and another one of those men has been convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. We know that in states all over this country, there are various policies for actual statutory laws on the books that allow for this, and in fact, mandate it.”
While Dansky feels strongly about women’s safety with biological males being housed in the same facilities, there have been reports of transgender women who feel extremely unsafe in male prisons, such as Ashley Diamond. Ashley Diamond is a transgender woman who is biologically male, who sued the state of Georgia for the second time in 2020. According to the lawsuit, Diamond was housed in men’s prisons, where she had allegedly been assaulted more than 14 times by inmates and prison staff. In addition to her lawsuit for negligence, Ashley demanded to be transferred to a women’s facility for safety and comfort.
With safety concerns in both scenarios, it’s hard to decide what’s best in this situation. Though Kara’s fight for female prisoners’ right to “safety” continues. Thoughts?
