New Jersey to Put Men in Women’s Prisons

The decision shows blatant disregard for the well-being of New Jersey’s incarcerated women

The state of New Jersey has agreed to a cowardly settlement in a lawsuit led by the ACLU and agreed to adopt a new policy requiring state prisons to house men according to their self-declared “gender identity,” rather than their sex.

New Jersey's new policy will recognize “self-attestations,” meaning that men do not have to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, have surgery to remove their penis, or take cross-sex hormones to be transferred to a women’s prison. Such a system provides a perfect environment for misconduct, but the NJ Department of Corrections chooses not to see the harms of such a policy; even stating that men who say they identify as women “will never be considered a management or security problem...” even though other states with such policies, like Washington and Pennsylvania, have seen violence and abuse toward women result from such transfers, where a male raped a woman in a prison shower.

In California, another man — convicted of rape and torture — was transferred to a women’s facility where he has allegedly raped women with objects. Even the California Department of Corrections itself recognizes the risk of increased abuse, violence, and even pregnancy toward the women in its care.

Polling shows that 77% of Americans agree that male sex offenders and domestic abusers should be kept out of women’s prisons, regardless of their personal identity.

These policies ignore the unique vulnerabilities of incarcerated women. Women, despite committing comparatively few violent crimes, represent the fastest-growing prison population in America, and their involvement in the justice system is largely tied to their experiences of male violence. For example, a 2016 study reported that up to 86% of incarcerated women are survivors of sexual violence. Female prisoners are also eight times more likely to have experienced abuse than men. As a result, criminal justice system workers are trained to assume that female offenders are deeply traumatized, and that the source of women’s trauma predominantly stems from males. 

There is no evidence that identifying as a woman makes a man less likely to commit violent crimes than the general male population, even if they take steps to change their physiology or reduce their testosterone. Swedish longitudinal studies, for example, found that men retain “male level of criminality” even after hormones and surgery.  These horrific abuses of the most marginalized women in America simply cannot be tolerated.

Free Speech Concerns

On top of it all, New Jersey’s new policy also requires officers to use an inmate's preferred pronouns, including gender-neutral pronouns such as “they/them”, or "Mx.", which inappropriately compels officers to use terms or speech they may not agree with, and ignores the biological reality that sex in mammals is an immutable characteristic. Similar policies in New York designate failure to use a person’s preferred pronouns as “sexual harassment” and can subject correctional officers to disciplinary actions should they dare not to comply with their groupthink policies. (Learn more about the free speech consequences of such policies).

Learn More:

To learn more about the treatment of women in the justice system and how incarcerated women are harmed by “gender identity” policies, check out our website’s resources and partner organizations:

Woman II Woman
Representing current and formerly incarcerated women in California

Keep Prisons Single-Sex
An international campaign to keep all males out of women’s prisons