Duluth News tribune publishes wolf op-ed

March 12, 2025

A Logical Bill Gets Met With Misogynist Extremism in Minnesota Legislature

By Sharon Byrne, Women’s Liberation Front

Representative Franson presented a bill in Minnesota Legislature’s Public Safety Committee to keep the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee – the sole women's prison – for females inmates only.

Minnesota’s Department of Corrections allows male inmates to transfer into the women’s facility if they identify as transgender. Three male inmates are already in Shakopee. A male inmate that previously transferred as a transgender woman was sent back to a male correctional facility after officials learned something, Minnesota DOC Commissioner Schnelling revealed during the hearing.  Perhaps they learned, like all prisons that allow men identifying as trans into women’s prisons, that men will indeed sexually assault incarcerated women. Surgery is not required to get into the women’s prison, and identifying as transgender doesn’t make a man any less male.

The extreme misogyny from legislators was alarming. They were rigid that trans people deserved safety above the legitimate and reasonable concerns of incarcerated women and staff working at Shakopee. Female legislators in particular repeatedly spouted that trans people are so stalked and abused (by men) that they must be placed in the women’s facility. Male violence is a problem for the 10 male facilities. Shoving men into the sole women’s facility is deeply misogynist.

To the incarcerated women and staff of Shakopee, we see you. And we stand with you.

Women’s Liberation Front is a radical feminist organization that restores, protects and defends the rights of women and girls.