(Olympia, WA), A Washington lawmaker has introduced legislation that would prevent an inmate convicted of a physical or sexual assault from being housed in a cell with another inmate of the opposite sex.
House Bill 1629 is sponsored by Rep. Michelle Caldier, R-Gig Harbor, who told The Center Square it was inspired by an incident at the women’s prison in Purdy and a subsequent lawsuit.
Per a news release from Caldier: “A fully intact biological male who identifies as female was placed in a cell with a female inmate in 2022 and allegedly sexually assaulted the woman. The attacker is a convicted sex offender who was transferred to the women’s prison after choosing to identify as a woman. That cellmate was relocated to the Monroe prison following the attack against the woman. The woman has since filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Corrections.”
Caldier said the victim was forced to share the same cell and bunk with a man who identified as a woman. The alleged perpetrator had been housed at a men’s prison, but was relocated to Purdy after reporting he identified as a woman.
“He was in prison for raping women and then allegedly he raped this woman in the cell with him,” said Caldier. “Most of the women who are in the women’s prison have either been physical or sexually assaulted or both by men, and a lot of them have traumatized childhoods.”
Caldier’s bill says, “An inmate being housed in a correctional facility shall not be assigned to share a room or cell with any other person of a different biological sex than that of the inmate if the inmate has a history of sexual or physical violence against a victim whose biological sex is the same as the other person assigned to the room or cell.”
“We should be protecting these women from being raped while they are in prison; that is our No. 1 job,” she said.
Complicating the matter is a federal ruling that came this week.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two sexes: male and female, and to house transgender women in men’s prisons. Trump’s order also ceased any funding for gender-affirming medical care for inmates.
The order reversed former President Joe Biden’s direction to the Bureau of Prisons that required prisons to consider inmates’ “current gender expression” when deciding if they should be housed with men or women.
This week’s order went against Trump’s executive order.
According to Reuters, “about 2,230 transgender inmates are housed in federal custodial facilities and halfway houses. About two thirds of them, 1,506, are transgender women, most of whom are housed in men’s prisons.”
Caldier said her bill was written to allow for a transgender inmate to be housed with the gender they identify with, but not if their crimes are related to sexual abuse.
“My bill says they can be housed in there, but if they are in for a sex crime against a woman, they can’t be,” said Caldier. “Part of them healing is working through underlying trauma, and there’s no way you can heal when you are repeatedly retraumatized.”
The bill has been referred to the Community Safety Committee but has not been scheduled for a hearing.
“I am going to continue to push for a hearing and hopefully this is something that can be addressed this year, and if not, we’re going to continue to pay out lawsuits on this,” said Caldier.