On February 26th feminists in the UK kicked off a week of global events to bring attention to the threat to women and girls from male criminals placed in female prisons around the world. Photos from these events will be uploaded to the Internet and sent to the media worldwide.
The goal of this global effort is to raise awareness of the harmful policies that place incarcerated women and girls in living conditions with dangerous male criminals. In the UK, 49% of the male criminals who identify as women are rapists, sex abusers, and pedophiles. Why are such men allowed access to this most vulnerable population of women and girls ?
Women and girls in prison, jails, and juvenile detention centers are among the most vulnerable in the world, and often have a history of having been sexually victimized. Allowing male criminals who identity as women into female prisons puts women and girls at risk of serious assault, rape, and even death. The policies allowing men in women’s prisons are based on unscientific ideas that humans can change their biological sex.
In January 2021 SB 132, the so-called “Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act“, took effect in California, which allows male prisoners who self-identify as “trans” to be housed in women’s prisons, putting women prisoners at serious risk of harm without regard to their safety. The San Francisco BayView National Black Newspaper published a letter by Ayanna Green to Scott Weiner, the author of the bill, and cc’d to Governor Newsom, among other officials, pointing out the blatant unfairness to women prisoners currently being practiced due to SB 132.
On February 27, women gathered in Redwood City, CA to initiate the US effort to shed light on the reckless policies that place incarcerated women and girls at risk from male criminals who identify as women. Rallies are planned by Keep Prisons Single Sex USA throughout the country.
FIST members participated in the protest at the San Mateo County building in Redwood City, and also participated in a similar protest in Chicago on March 6th. We must stand together and stop these abusive policies worldwide.