Women’s advocates are celebrating a federal investigation into trans inmates in California prisons who they claim are putting women at risk — calling the probe long overdue.
The Department of Justice confirmed Thursday it’s launching an investigation into whether California policies that allow trans inmates to transfer to women’s correctional facilities violates the rights of female prisoners — as a disturbing rape case involving a trans convict who allegedly impregnated a fellow inmate unfolds.
“Finally,” texted Erin Friday, an attorney and women’s advocate. “Complete joy on our end.”
Amie Ichikawa, a founder of WomanIIWoman, a nonprofit organization providing reentry services for incarcerated women, called the investigation a “source of hope and light for the women inside who have been completely silenced and gaslit.”
“We should never have to wait for women to get raped and beaten to decide whether their rights are being violated,” she said.
The DOJ’s investigation is focused on women’s facilities in California and Maine, including the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County and Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.
The Central California Women’s Facility — where Ichikawa also spent roughly four years after a drug-related assault conviction in 2009 — is also the site of a rape case that roiled advocates for sex-exclusive spaces.
Accused rapist Tremaine Carroll was in Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla because of Senate Bill 132, also known as the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, a bill authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021.
The law allows transgender, nonbinary, and intersex inmates to be housed according to their gender identity.
Carroll, 52, has been charged with raping three women while imprisoned in the Central California Women’s Facility. One female cellmate became pregnant, according to prosectors.
The court has ruled that Carroll must be addressed using she/her pronouns. Prosecutor Eric DuTemple is appealing that decision, arguing that Carroll does not sincerely identify as a women but rather is doing so to exploit the system.
“We contend he was/is only doing so for the benefit of [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation] staff to remain at … female only facilities, to carry on his sexual exploits with females,” prosecutors argued in a November 2024 motion.
Carroll’s case is currently set for trial later this year.
Newsom’s office deferred to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which said that assigning transgender women to men’s prisons would violate the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.
That law, passed in 2003, requires officials to take preventative steps to deter rape and sexual assault in prisons. Advocates of SB 132 argue that trans women are at risk of rape when housed in men’s facilities.
“CDCR is committed to providing a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people, enforcing a zero-tolerance policy as mandated by the federal legal requirements known as the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA),” said Terri Hardy, a spokesperson.
“Any suggestion that all transgender women be assigned to men’s institutions as a matter of policy is a suggestion to violate federal law,” Hardy added.
Ichikawa argued that the trans prison policy creates a “huge power imbalance” and culture of fear where women can be retraumatized if they are housed with men.
She is regularly in contact with women inmates and alleged they are subjected to leering, threats, sexual encounters and other unwanted contact.
“92% of the population is a survivor of some kind of abuse, at the hands of mostly men. Putting them in the same population …. is very detrimental to anyone’s rehabilitation,” Ichikawa said.
The Department of Justice probe will examine whether California officials have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of violating inmates’ rights at the two women’s facilities.
There are 2,405 people identifying as transgender, nonbinary and intersex in California prisons, according to state statistics.
Since SB 132 was implemented, 1,028 people have requested transfers to women’s prisons based on their gender identity and 47 have been approved, per the state.
Wiener, who authored the bill, called the DOJ investigation an “absurd” waste of resources.
“President Trump is the one who should be sent to a men’s prison, not the trans women who are routinely targeted and raped in men’s prisons,” Wiener said in a statement.
“But Trump and his personal lawyer Pam Bondi are more focused on scoring culture war points on the backs of trans people and immigrants than solving our country’s actual problems.”
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