The Trump administration is launching an investigation into trans women in women’s prisons in California and horrific allegations of r@pe and harassment after a trans convict got another inmate pregnant.
Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, confirmed to the Post that the DOJ will write to Gov. Gavin Newsom and Janet Mills about the impending investigation.
The focus will be on the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County, the Central California Women’s Facility in Madera County, and the Maine Correctional Center in Windham, which have both been at the center of horrific allegations.
Officials say the probe will examine whether the two states have violated the constitutional rights of female inmates by placing them alongside male prisoners.
The investigation follows a billboard campaign launched across California by two women’s rights groups demanding attention to a concerning rise in trans prisoners raping women.
The campaign, organized by Women Are Real and WomaniiWoman, wants better scrutiny of biological male inmates housed in women’s prisons under Senate Bill 132, and drawing attention to the upcoming rape trial of trans prisoner Tremaine Carroll.
Carroll, 52, was in Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla because of SB 132, passed in 2021, allowing transgend£r, nonbinary, and inters£x inmates to be housed according to their gender identity.
She has been charged with r@ping three women while imprisoned in the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. Prosecutors say one female cellmate became pregnant.
“Keeping men out of women’s prisons is not only common sense – it’s a matter of safety and constitutional rights,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said. “The Trump Administration will not stand by if governors are facilitating the abuse of biological women under the guise of inclusion.”
The California probe will examine whether officials have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of violating inmates’ rights at the two women’s facilities.
Authorities will look into allegations that female prisoners have been subjected to s£xual ass@ult, r@pe, voyeurism, and intimidation linked to the presence of male inmates.
Investigators will also assess potential violations of First Amendment protections, the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
“These investigations will uncover whether the dangerous national trend of housing men in women’s prisons has resulted in violations of women’s constitutional rights,” Dhillon said.