New case documents submitted to the state examine the threat of pregnancy posed to female prisoners under “gender identity” policies

As we receive ongoing reports from plaintiffs and other incarcerated women describing atrocities committed by men housed with them under California Senate Bill 132 (SB132), WoLF has initiated narrow, limited-scope discovery in Chandler v. California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

On January 21, 2023, WoLF submitted plaintiff Tomiekia Johnson’s first set of interrogatories and requests for the production of documents to defendant CDCR. These requests are narrowly focused on pregnancy and instances of retaliation against Tomiekia and other women who report abuse.

An unprecedented backlog in the docket leaves the motions to dismiss (by the state) and intervene (by the Transgender Law Center and the ACLU) undecided seven months after the conclusion of the briefing. While WoLF continues to pursue every available mechanism for justice while this case makes its way through the system, the only way to require the state to provide vital factual information about the welfare of the women under SB132 is through the discovery process.

Fighting for the Rights of Incarcerated Women

Since November 17, 2021, WoLF has been litigating on behalf of Tomiekia, Nadia, Krystal, Janine, and all of the incarcerated women in California to overturn the state’s SB132, a bill that lets men “self-identify” into women-only facilities, including men from maximum security prisons.

Our lawsuit seeks justice for female prisoners for their loss of privacy and opportunities for rehabilitative programming; psychological anguish; constitutional rights violations; and intimidation, sexual harassment, physical assaults, and sexual assaults as a result of being housed with men, some of whom have allegedly discontinued their “affirming” hormone treatments to resume physical erections. Incarcerated women’s experiences are treated as inconveniences that get in the way of people pretending this “never happens.”

When the ACLU filed a Motion to Intervene on May 9, 2022, they focused on the men’s wants and feelings and denied documented facts such as that one-third of the 300 men seeking transfer to women’s facilities were sex offenders. In fact, they argued that keeping a man out of women’s prisons because he’s a documented sex offender constitutes discrimination. This is just one example of the opposition we’ve faced during this lawsuit, “the world’s most taboo legal case.” Read more about our case updates here.

Policies such as California’s have resulted in unplanned pregnancies, despite such outcomes being entirely avoidable, preventable, foreseeable, and predictable by simply not locking incarcerated women up with men. But the scope of this problem is still unknown, because the only entities that can confirm these occurrences are keeping it quiet.

“I told my male roommate a thousand times I can see his penis and the whole package through his panties. He walks around in bra and panties, not properly dressed.”
- Tomiekia Johnson (The Post Millennial, Jan. 25, 2023)

Since SB132 went into effect in January 2021, how many women imprisoned in California have become pregnant? How many have started using birth control? How many men are asking to be transferred into women’s facilities without any pretense of “identifying as a woman,” and how many of these transfer requests are accepted? The public doesn’t know the answers to these questions, and CDCR does not intend to change that now.

Discovery in a court case is governed by rules of civil procedure. Typically, the defendant would have 30 days to respond to this type of request. They either have to answer the questions and provide the documents for which we asked or submit an objection explaining why they don’t want to provide that information.

WoLF filed these time-sensitive discovery requests to shed light on CDCR’s knowledge and institutional practices and ongoing treatment of female prisoners in their custody, including uncovering the degree of CDCR’s awareness of and attempts to prevent pregnancy after the passing of SB132.

“When women complain [or] when they feel threatened … they are just moved. From bed to bed, room to room, and eventually yard to yard. And if you complain a little bit too long … you are put ‘in jail’ [solitary confinement].”
- Sagal Sadiq (Reduxx, Jun. 10, 2022)

The California Attorney General’s office said discovery requests about the harms of this law on women in state custody are “premature” while the motions are still pending. Despite the stated position that they can freeze this case and do nothing to help these women just because they filed a motion last spring, they will eventually be required to tell the public the truth, yet they are withholding this information by refusing to even formally object to Tomiekia’s requests.

The ‘Gender Identity’ Battleground: Women’s Prisons

WoLF does this work at a time when very few people are willing to stand up for these vulnerable women. Last October, during the Let Women Speak USA tour, Kellie-Jay Keen (Posie Parker) confronted California state senator Scott Wiener who aided the creation and passage of SB132, “Why do you got male rapists in women's prisons [...] Mr. Wiener, why? Why? Why are you supporting a man who puts rapists in women's prisons?” Keen asked the senator and his supporters.

Last December, near the Alameda County Courthouse in Oakland, California, women peacefully protesting the placement of Dana Rivers and other trans-identified men in women’s prisons were attacked by black-clad transactivists with eggs and pies - among those assaulted were WoLF founder Lierre Keith, WDI USA board member Kara Dansky, and TERF Collective’s Jesika Gonzalez. Their protest banners were stolen and later burned by transactivists.

Take Action!

WoLF is a radical feminist organization that refuses to stand idly by while incarcerated women are forced to live in these inhumane conditions.

You can learn more about Chandler v. CDCR on our lawsuit summary page, read our argument for why this is unconstitutional here, or read firsthand accounts from incarcerated women here. You can take action by urging your Senators and House Representatives to vote YES on the Preventing Violence Against Female Inmates Act of 2022 through this simple online form.