The government of US President Donald Trump announced this Thursday (26) an investigation against the Democratic administration of California for allowing the transfer of transgender women to women’s prisons, alleging that this practice could put other inmates at risk and violate the Constitution.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in a press release that it will also investigate the state of Maine for similar circumstances, referring to transgender women as “men”.
“Keeping men out of women’s prisons is not just a matter of common sense, but also of safety and constitutional rights,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The DOJ alleged in the statement that in California there were reports of “sexual assault, rape, voyeurism, and a widespread climate of sexual intimidation due to the presence of men in female lockup” in two state prisons.
In 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 132, which gives transgender, non-binary and intersex people incarcerated in state prisons the right to be housed in either men’s or women’s facilities.
The law was enacted in 2021. Since then, according to data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1,028 requests have been made to transfer from men’s prisons to women’s facilities; for now, 47 requests have been approved, while 132 have been denied.
Of 84 requests to transfer from women’s prisons to men’s facilities, seven were approved and 12 were denied.
