The New Jersey Department of Corrections will now place prisoners in facilities based on their gender identity and not on their biological sex at birth, with allows biological males to enter women's prisons. The decision was made during a settlement reached this week after a transgender woman, born male, filed a lawsuit in 2019 alleging "sexual harassment, discrimination and physical threats from corrections officers and inmates alike."
According to NPR, the case Sonia Doe v. New Jersey Department of Corrections, et al, involved the transgender Doe who identified as a woman since 2003 and had been placed in four different men's prisons in New Jersey between March 2018 and August 2019. After the lawsuit Doe filed in August 2019, the inmate was transferred to a women's prison.
The new policy orders that New Jersey inmates would be placed "with a presumption that the inmate will be housed in line with their gender identity," CBS News reported. However, the Department of Corrections will be allowed to override the presumption on the basis of "management, security or safety issues." The policy demands though, that "under no circumstances will a transgender, intersex, or nonbinary inmate's placement in line with their gender identity be considered a management or security problem solely due to their gender identity."
Because New Jersey will now let biological males into women's prisons and biological females into men's prisons, inmates who want to be placed in prisons that align with their gender identity rather than birth sex will be temporarily placed in private cells pending their housing arrangements. They will also be given a chance to appeal and give insights into their housing decisions.
The New Jersey Department of Corrections' new order also declares that harrassment or discrimination against an inmate's gender identity is "not acceptable under any circumstances" and that staff must address the inmates with their preferred pronouns. The policy will also provide gender-affirming properties such as undergarments and gender-affirming medical care. Additionally, transgender, intersex and nonbinary inmates will be given added protections for showering and searches. This change was met with criticism from women's rights groups.
The New Jersey representative for the U.S. Chapter of the Women's Human Rights Campaign Leanna DeLorenzo told the Christian Post that the primary concern in this issue is the safety of women or "adult human female, not a man playing dress-up and forcing us to feed into his delusions."
DeLorenzo argued that women in correctional facilities are subjected to constant harassment by male correctional officers and that this change is "unacceptable," saying that being a "woman is not a feeling, it's a reality." She decried the latest New Jersey policy on inmates because the Department of Corrections fails to address the institutional mistreatment of women that has been going on for years.
"I don't understand why women are penalized and why we must have our spaces invaded," DeLorenzo lamented, criticizing Doe's claims that he was terrified of living in a men's prison and comparing his experience with women's experience of being traumatized by men as well.
"This just shows over and over again how women are not cared about in the justice system," DeLorenzo said, calling for a stop to these women endangering changes that continue the cycle of women getting raped and abused in prisons. Once the U.S. Congress passes the Equality Act, women in prison will no longer be safe from men who identify as women to gain access to such facilities.
