Last year, an inmate at an Illinois women’s prison alleged that she was raped by a transgender inmate who was transferred into her housing unit. According to PBS affiliate WTTW, that inmate filed a federal lawsuit claiming that officials of the Illinois Department of Corrections conducted a “sham investigation” to help cover it up.
“The transfer of transgender inmates from male to female prisons has been a contentious policy within IDOC,” the plaintiff’s attorneys wrote in the complaint. “In an attempt to justify the transfers, Defendants Sexton, Calhoun, Keeler and currently other unknown IDOC employees covered up the sexual assault of Plaintiff and tried to falsely classify it as consensual, to keep it from being considered a PREA violation.”
The policy of housing inmates based on their gender identity is becoming more widespread, and Democrats seek to enshrine the policy in federal law through the so-called Equality Act. This week, independent journalist Abigail Shrier cited both these violent incidents during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee as examples of the dangers of passing the Equality Act.
