How Do We Protect Females in Vulnerable Situations?

            Biological males claiming to be women are endangering female inmates in prisons. Recently, Ramel Blount, age 33, who goes by Diamond Blount, pled guilty to attempted rape. He was housed in a women’s facility at New York’s Rickers Island jail when he raped a female prisoner. He has been sentenced to seven years for the rape. In addition to the seven-year sentence, he must register as a sex offender. 

            Rikers Island is known for its violent conditions. However, this woman would not have been raped if biological men were housed with biological men despite their claim to be female. The problem at Rickers Island is not a lone event. A female in an Illinois prison reported that this exact thing happened to her in 2021.

            For several years, officials at jail and prison facilities have been pressured to house male prisoners identifying as female with women. It is happening in New York and in California, but women are starting to push back to protect their privacy and safety. Nicole Russell stated that women are pushing back to preserve their right to safety and privacy.

The Women’s Liberation Front, which seeks to protect the privacy and equality of women, filed a lawsuit in federal court arguing that California’s SB 132 is unconstitutional and creates an unsafe environment for women, for whom these single-sex facilities exist. One plaintiff in the suit says she was sexually assaulted by an inmate who transferred from a men’s facility. Another plaintiff says she was inappropriately “grabbed.”

One of the biggest reasons that so many conservatives oppose the Equality Act before Congress is that it would open the door to this, and similar situations, nationwide. And few laws would be left to protect the most vulnerable.

Under the Equality Act, any place that receives federal funds, from schools to prisons, would be forced to banish single-sex spaces or be liable to discrimination charges. It’s important to make clear: Most trans-identifying individuals aren’t perverts or assailants-in-waiting. But under these policies, bad actors need only to identify as the opposite sex to gain access to private spaces.

In Alaska, a man claiming to be a woman tried to enter a shelter for battered women. When he was refused, he sued the organization for discrimination under a local law governing sexual orientation and gender identity.

Women serving time in prison or jail still deserve to be treated humanely and with respect. They still have a right to privacy and safety.

            Privacy and safety for women and girls is being destroyed by claims of discrimination. The rush to protect people who are transgender is overriding the rights of women and girls to have safe, private places.