In case you missed it, my colleague Caroline Downey had a chilling report about what’s allegedly been going on at the Washington Corrections Center for Women. In the report, a former female inmate confirms what a former corrections officer already told National Review — that male offenders have been put in the women’s facility after claiming a transgender identity, whereupon they have sexually abused female inmates. (Caroline notes that “the prison denies having any complaints on file that resemble those described by the inmate.”)
Meanwhile, in Scotland, a study published in the British Journal of Criminology details reports from female prisoners about transgender inmates who had transitioned in custody, then reverted to their natal sex after release. A freedom-of-information request revealed that of twelve trans-identifying prisoners convicted of violent or sexual crimes and housed in Scottish women’s jails, only one had undertaken medical and surgical transition. The rest had merely self-identified as women.
One female inmate interviewed for the Scottish prisons report said of a trans prisoner: “I feel like it was a bit of an act. Because she had a beard and she didn’t try. . . . And she didn’t try to cover up her ‘down belows.’ She just didn’t try.” Another female inmate said that a trans prisoner “wanted to be in this hall because he wanted to have sex with loads of lassies.”
The inmate interviewed in Caroline’s report expresses similar concerns.