URGENT!

Maine lawmakers are moving to allow male offenders, including rapists and domestic abusers, into women's prisons

Update

As of Tuesday, June 15th, LD 1044 has passed both the House and the Senate without a floor debate or roll call.

Now, we are calling on Governor Janet Mills of Maine to veto LD 1044!

LD 1044, which passed the Maine Committee on Criminal Justice & Public Safety On May 25 with only one legislator voting against it, would place male offenders in women’s prisons based on their claimed “gender identity.”

This bill would have a disastrous impact on the safety, rights, and dignity of incarcerated women in Maine by allowing men, regardless of their history of violence against women or the threat they may pose to women, to be moved to female correctional facilities. Prisons are separated by sex for a reason — to keep women safe from male violence. Allowing men to “self-identify” into women’s prisons violates the internationally recognized rights of prisoners, exposing them to an increased risk of sexualized violence.

In states like California and Washington that have enacted bills like LD 1044, we have already seen devastating results. In California, prison officials have spoken out about men falsely claiming to identify as “women” purely to seek a transfer. An advocacy group for incarcerated women told the Senate Judiciary Committee that at least one man so far has been successful in his ruse. One man, convicted of raping and torturing women, was moved to a California women’s prison where he subsequently raped female inmates. 

In Washington state, at least one of the men transferred under the state’s “gender identity” policy sexually assaulted a female inmate upon arrival. 

Women’s involvement in the justice system is largely tied to their experiences of male violence. Women are most likely to be convicted of drug or property crimes, and the rates of violent crime committed by women are significantly lower than for men. When women commit violent crimes, it tends to be against an abusive male partner. Forcing women to be housed with violent men, including sex offenders, is cruel and a violation of their human rights.

In addition to being cruel, these bills are also massively unpopular with a bipartisan majority of American voters. According to October 2020 polling, over three-fourths of American voters (77 percent) agree that male sex offenders or domestic abusers should not be housed in women’s prisons, regardless of how they identify.

This bill would also force female officers to conduct intimate searches on male prisoners, and unconstitutionally compel the speech of correctional officers.

Now we're calling on the Maine Legislature to vote NO on LD 1044 and keep prisons single sex!