Over the weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a series of laws aimed at protecting the LGBTQ+ community, including a law requiring California to house transgender inmates in prisons based on their gender identity.
What We Know:
- Men and women are housed in separate facilities by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and until now, transgender inmates were often housed based on their sex assigned at birth. Many advocates for the transgender community have said this is dangerous, particularly for transgender women housed in facilities for men.
- The law Newsom signed over the weekend says that during the intake process, officers must ask inmates privately if they identify as transgender, nonbinary, or intersex. Those inmates can then request to be placed in a facility that houses either men or women.
- The law says those requests cannot be denied by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation solely because of inmates’ anatomy or sexual orientation. However, the state can deny the request if it has “management or security concerns”. The state must give the inmate a written statement if the request is denied to explain the decision as well as give the inmate a “meaningful opportunity” to object. Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco who authored the bill, said he doesn’t expect that law exception to be used very often.
“It’s just a false narrative about transgender people and about transgender women in particular that they’re somehow not really women and are just trying to scam their way into women’s bathrooms or facilities in order to do bad things,” Wiener said. “Overwhelmingly the people who are being victimized are trans people.”
- The law says the state must reassess where they are housed if inmates raise concerns about their health or safety at any time. Michelle Calvin, a transgender woman incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison, said it means a lot to her. “I’ve been in for 15 years. I’ve been through the abuse, I’ve been through the disrespect of staff not addressing me for who I am because I am a woman,” Calvin said in a recent press conference about the bill.
- According to a 2009 study by the University of California, Irvine of prison inmates in California, transgender inmates are 13 times more likely than the average inmate to be sexually assaulted. Similarly, a federal study in 2011-2012 found that 12.2% of non-heterosexual prison inmates reported being sexually victimized by another inmate, a rate that is 10 times higher than heterosexual prison inmates.
- Under the new law, officers are also required to address transgender inmates based on the pronouns of their choice. It also requires officers to search inmates based on the search policy of their gender identity.
- This law was one of several LGBTQ+ laws that Newsom signed on Saturday. Another law authored by Weiner and signed by Newsom requires local public health officers to better track how diseases are affecting the LGBTQ+ community. He also signed a law authored by state Senator Lena Gonzalez to ban life and disability insurance companies from denying coverage solely because someone is HIV positive. Lastly, a law authored by Assemblyman Miguel Santiago sets up a Transgender Wellness and Equity Fund to provide grants to organizations that support the transgender community.
- “California has some of the strongest pro LGBTQ+ laws in the nation and with the bills signed today, our march toward equality takes an additional step forward,” Newsom said in a statement.
“These new laws will help us better understand the impacts of COVID-19 on the LGBTQ+ community, establish a new fund to support our transgender sisters and brothers, and advance inclusive and culturally competent efforts that uphold the dignity of all Californians, regardless of who you are or who you love.”
In 2018, Connecticut passed a similar law. New York City, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts have also housed inmates based on their gender identity.
