Advocates of transgender rights say California prison officials are hostile to a recent state law that allows inmates to transfer to a prison facility that matches their gender identity, and can’t be counted on to defend it in court.
SB132 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, which took effect last year, was challenged in federal court in November by an anti-transgender group that said it would subject female inmates to harassment and violence by allowing men to pose as women. In response, Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office, representing the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in a legal filing that the courts have allowed prison officials to decide where inmates, including transgender inmates, should be housed.
On Monday, transgender female inmates represented by the Transgender Law Center, Lambda Legal and the American Civil Liberties Union asked the judge to let them intervene in the case and provide a stronger defense of the law.
“It is a law that they not only refuse to fully implement, but regularly violate,” Dimitri Portnoi, a lawyer for the groups, said in a filing with the U.S. District Court in Fresno.
Since the law took effect, Portnoi wrote, inmates have filed at least 321 requests for transfers based on gender identity, but the Corrections Department has granted only 46, and even some of those have not yet been moved.
While SB132 was pending, Portnoi said, legislative staff reported that 40% of transgender inmates reported being assaulted by other inmates, and 38% by prison staff. He said one of the inmates represented by the group described regularly being referred to as “him” and “boy” by prison guards, and another said a guard placed her in a cell with a man who was a known sexual assailant, who proceeded to assault her.
These inmates will “lose fundamental rights if CDCR, which has proved to be indifferent or even hostile to the interests of incarcerated (transgender and intersex) people, does not adequately represent their interests,” Portnoi said.
The department declined to comment but cited its webpage on SB132, which said all inmate requests for transfers under the law receive an “in-depth review” from a committee of prison guards and health care staff, led by a warden. Transfers can be denied based on “management or security concerns,” but not for “discriminatory reasons,” the department said, and it is committed to “providing a safe, humane, respectful, and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated persons,” including transgender inmates.
Out of 97,000 inmates in state custody, the department said, 1,503 have self-identified as transgender, nonbinary or intersex.
The lawsuit was filed by a group called Women’s Liberation Front on behalf of four female inmates. It said SB132 would house them with males whose “claimed identity” was transgender female and would violate their freedom of speech and religion, as well as their right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, by requiring them to treat those inmates as women.
“The reality that men and women are factually, materially, immutably different, in ways that disadvantage women and necessitate attention to women’s unique needs, supports protection of incarcerated women by providing women-only correctional facilities,” the lawsuit said. It said the new law “effectively eliminates women-only correctional facilities in California.”
“This law has already subjected incarcerated women to sexual assault, abuse and intimidation, in addition to the constant indignity of having to shower, undress and use the toilet in front of men,” Lauren Adams, the group’s legal director, said Tuesday in response to the latest court filing. “The ACLU, Lambda Legal and the Transgender Law Center have the nerve to call women ‘bigots’ when they object.”
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
