Sexual Assault Survivor’s Ordeal WIth Trans Inmate in Female Prison Explored in Documentary
A sexual assault survivor gave an inside look at living in a female prison with male criminals who say they identify as transgender in a new documentary released Tuesday by the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative group. The six-minute documentary, part of Independent Women’s Forum’s “Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons” series, focuses on the story of Evelyn Valiente, a sexual assault survivor and former inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility. Valiente, who uses a pseudonym to protect her identity, was forced to share a housing unit with a male inmate who said he identified as a woman while serving time for killing someone in a shooting. “At first I thought it was going to be OK [but] it didn’t take long before this one particular individual was manipulative, calculating, vindictive, and always looking and seeking to do harm to another person,” Valiente said of the “trans” inmate, who had a history of sex crime convictions. In 2020, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed legislation requiring the state’s prison system to house inmates based on their gender identity and not their biological sex. Under the law, corrections officers are required to ask inmates privately how they identify and then work to house them accordingly.
Currently, five states—Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey—as well as New York City have passed laws allowing men who say they identify as women to be housed in women’s prisons. However, other states, such as Wisconsin, reportedly moved biologically male offenders who say they identify as transgender into all-female facilities despite their violent criminal histories.
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