California SB 132 Would Allow Trans-Identified Male Inmates to be Housed with Females

Feminists in Struggle, a nationwide feminist organization, strenuously opposes SB 132, a bill in the California legislature, “an act to add Sections 2605 and 2606 to the Penal Code, relating to corrections,” which would allow males who identify as transgender to be housed with the female population. This bill if enacted poses a grave risk to actual women, who comprise 52% of the general population and a growing percentage of the prison population.  SB 132 has already passed in the Senate and is due to be voted on imminently in the Assembly.

While we support and understand that the intent of this bill is to protect vulnerable trans-identified people, the actual result of this legislation would:

  • Allow ANY incarcerated male to CLAIM that he has a feminine “gender identity.”
  • Give any such incarcerated male the legal right to be housed at a women’s facility, even if he has been convicted of violent or sexual crimes against women.

This is a serious concern since studies indicate that males who transition retain the same patterns of male violence and criminality. A long-term study in Sweden found transwomen were 6 times more likely to commit any crime, and 18 times more likely to commit a violent crime, than female controls, and showed no evidence that identifying as a woman or undergoing sex reassignment surgery reduces the risk of male violence.  In the general population, violent crime is much more common among men than women, also putting women at much greater risk if males are housed with females.

To allow any male to claim a trans identity, with no biological requirements whatsoever, opens the door for sexual predators of various types, from voyeurs to rapists, to reinvent themselves as female by taking on female names and identities. Add to this the reality that the majority of female prisoners have been molested, raped, sexually assaulted, trafficked, coerced or forced into pornography and/or prostitution, and the potential harm to incarcerated women and girls is greatly increased if SB 132 becomes law.

It is unacceptable to endanger females in this way. Sex-segregation has long existed as a principle in human rights law, for reasons of privacy, safety, and dignity. We believe the onus must be on those seeking to change or abolish these principles to prove that doing so will not result in harm. Authors of SB 132 have not taken the requisite steps to provide such proof that SB 132 will not result in harm to female prisoners.

Additionally, where transgender self-ID policies have been allowed, such as in the UK, women have been raped, and assaulted. See: transgender inmate sexually assaults female prisoners; complaints from female prisoners leads to transgender prison wing; female prisoner files lawsuit for rape.

As written, this bill would violate the privacy, dignity, and safety of vulnerable women in prison.  We encourage feminists and allies to urge the California Assembly to vote NO on SB 132.

4 Replies to “California SB 132 Would Allow Trans-Identified Male Inmates to be Housed with Females”

  1. Pingback: How being a feminist got me dropped as an author of an animal rights anthology (Bonus: A beginner’s gender critical reading list) – A Crack in the System

  2. Pingback: Calif. Bill: Trans, Intersex, Non-Binary People Could Choose Men or Women's Prison ⋆ CHET DAY

  3. Deb Thompson

    What an Orwellian and Outrageous proposal to even consider putting vulnerable women who have no means of safety or escape from males who mostly have convictions of rape sexual assault terrorizing women and children murdering maiming disfiguring them and giving women and children life long fears and mental health issues,all this due to the entitlement of males who believe women and children are their property who think they have ultimate say of what women & children can say, do and where they can go at any given time of a day, week months and years it is an abomination to even suggest that dangerous males, as in most cases that the court has already ruled should not be free to walk among us in society hence the sentence of being incarcerated.
    Women are not second rate citizens to be treated as an after thought. Women and children are a vital and intrinsic part of communities, society and life.Women contribute majority of the unpaid work own less than 10
    percent of land world wide and have given birth to all of the human population on and yet males kill & rape us females at a higher rate than their own sex on a a weekly basis.Biological segregation in women’s spaces is a . must.Sex Based Protections of Females is a must. Nothing less will do. Clearly there is work for the male
    population to make their own spaces free of violence and predatory males NOT put them in Women’s & children’s spaces where invariably vicious and malicious harm happens by males to women and children,
    You only have to look at the DV stats to see what happens to Women in their own homes. Women and children are not even safe in their own homes !!

    Reply
  4. Pingback: A Beginner’s Gender Critical Reading List – A Crack in the System

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