Crazy California laws occasionally go national. Take SB 132, which took effect in January. It allows transgender-identified male state prison inmates to transfer into women’s prisons based on “individual preference”—no hormones, surgery or time spent living as the opposite sex required. Spokeswoman Terry Thornton of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation says 264 male prisoners have declared a nonmale identity and formally requested transfer to women’s facilities.
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according to Tyrina Griffin —who served 20 years at Chowchilla for second-degree murder and whose wife, Rachelle Johnson, is currently serving a life sentence there—many of the men who are transferring there aren’t even on hormonal medication. “They’re getting a full erection,” she said. “So you’re locked in this room, 24/7, with a man and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you tell the police you don’t want to live with a man, or you’re afraid or whatever, you’ll get a disciplinary infraction. So you’re basically punished for being scared.” Because female inmates are typically far less violent than male ones, women’s prisons like Chowchilla don’t separate inmates based on the severity of their crimes. “We’re all mixed together,” Ms. Ichikawa said. “The people who’ve murdered their children are in the same room as the people who’ve stolen boxers from
Walmart. ”
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According to some surveys, a majority of biological men who identify as trans women are sexually attracted to women. “How are you going to prevent these people from having sex?” Ms. Ichikawa said. “And how do you then decipher what’s sex and what’s rape?” The women told me—and studies confirm—that the vast majority of incarcerated women are sexual-assault survivors.
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In Washington state, which has a similar law, one male inmate who transferred into the women’s prison was a serial killer of women. “They might as well go ahead and start dropping the women off at San Quentin or Pelican Bay or one of the hard-core men’s prisons,” Ms. Griffin said. She added that women inside the prison are looking for ways to arm themselves. “They made it into a more of a war zone, to me, because I know women who are like, ‘I refuse to live with a man, and if I have to make me a prison knife to defend myself, then I’m going to do that.’ . . . I mean, you know how strong men are. Imagine one woman trying to defend herself against this big ol’ man, and the men coming in, they are like 6-foot-5, 6-foot-6, 300 pounds. These men look like Hercules compared to these little women. Can you fault the woman for actually trying to defend herself?”
According to the women I spoke to, the female guards at Chowchilla are as upset as the inmates by the law, recognizing that men are far more violent. The Corrections Department confirmed that unlike some men’s prisons, Chowchilla—California’s highest-security women’s prison—doesn’t have “gun coverage,” meaning officers overseeing the general population are armed only with batons and pepper spray.