"Who needs to 'get a room' when biological male inmates are f*cking the women in bathrooms!" an incarcerated woman, "Ursula," exclaimed about the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla.
SB311 prohibits transgender women convicted of certain sexual offenses under the Sex Offender Registration Act from being housed in women's prisons. This bill also gives the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation the authority to establish secure facilities at CCWF & CIW (California Institute for Women) to house transgender women.
In 2022, attorneys filed a lawsuit, on behalf of a small group of incarcerated women, to keep women's prisons single-sex. They pointed out an interesting caveat to SB132, proposed by Senator Scott Wiener and signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020. While SB132 allows men identifying as women to be housed in women's prisons, those biological males must abide by the longstanding Prison Rape Elimination Act, which prohibits sexual conduct with other inmates. Since 2021, CCWF officials have not strictly followed that act. In fact, one male identifying as a woman, inmate Tremaine Carroll, was finally removed from CCWF in 2025, pending rape and witness intimidation charges. According to Woman II Woman.org, prison staff and inmate witnesses said a pregnant woman, moved from CCWF to CIW, named Carroll as the father of her child.
After no real movement in the courts to render justice to the women and no interest by Senator Wiener and Governor Newsom to correct the damage caused by SB132, incarcerated women, a handful of organizations, and Senator Shannon Grove pushed forth a better way: SB311. Each of the eighteen women interviewed for this article said SB311 doesn't go far enough, but believe it's a start. Situations like what "Ursula" describes won't be prevented: a woman at work "shook" when a 6-foot-1, biologically male coworker "snapped on her" during a verbal dispute. Ursula said, "She's usually very calm, but he rattled her."
While SB311 makes its way through the legislative process, women in prison workplaces must navigate when to appropriately use bathrooms with low partitions that allow a view of the next stall. "He thinks because he sits down it's OK. We still know he had to move his parts to use the bathroom. He gets upset when women wait until he's finished to use the bathroom," said Ursula. "We will never be comfortable with this, and only the women who want to be intimate with them will be."
"It's all about the money they get housing men with women," said "Sarah," another female inmate. Women have to walk around with "kid gloves on, and California won't protect women's sports, bathrooms, locker rooms, saunas, spas and other female spaces. It makes me angry inside." Sarah spends a lot of time at the Protestant Chapel and says all the religious leaders she has spoken to disagree with biological males being housed with women. She asks, "Why would men who want to be women go back on the process of sex reassignment surgery once they get to the women's prison?" Sarah has witnessed men "change their minds and get girlfriends. CCWF became a party for them, the men get drunk, high, and turn violent. I can see it, the streak of violence. Their voices get manly and they totally change. They steal and bully women." Some version of this statement was echoed by all the women interviewed. Since female-identifying males arrived in CCWF in 2021, such stories have circulated widely throughout the prison. In fact, this writer has personally experienced such aggression by biologically male inmates on over twenty occasions.
One former gang member revealed that a biologically-male roommate told her he belonged to a rival gang and challenged her to a fight. "What am I supposed to do about that?" she asked. "I can't fight this man. SB132 can't prevent that." She reminded me that biological males convicted of rape and murders heinous enough to earn the death penalty are loose among the female population, as California has no separate Death Row.
Many incarcerated women believe that biological males use the system for their own designs. They can't get past how biological men, who might have raped other men in the men's prisons, are walking among and sleeping next to women in small cells. As a result, some women now carry weapons to protect themselves. "What are we supposed to do when the 'trans women' are OK being called 'he,' and their girlfriends call them 'he' in front of certain people?" Ursula asked. According to Ursula the girlfriends are fake, referring to the boyfriend as "she," in front of certain people to keep him from being transferred back to the men's prison.
Aside from the danger to incarcerated women, housing biological men in women's prisons presents a financial burden to California taxpayers, one unfair to biological women. As Sarah explained, "California funds surgeries for men in the women's prisons without equal protection for women who had to undergo mastectomies to remove cancer but can't get breasts implants, while men can." On August 31, 2023 a Public Records Act Request (made by Sarah) revealed the following number of surgeries in California from fiscal year 2016-17 to July 14, 2023, and their costs—surgeries for which only trans inmates are eligible:
- Double mastectomy: 40 operations, $1,036,883.43
- Breast Implants: 11 operations, $180,354.05
- Facial Feminization: 2 procedures, $184,140.78
- Laser Hair Removal: 69 procedures, $223,568.24
- Vaginoplasty: 35 surgeries, $2,452,043.60
- Grand Total (over approximately seven years): $4,076,990.10
Eye-popping as this four-plus million-dollar figure is, Sarah explained, "the data demonstrate the costs of the procedures only and do not include other costs such as hospitalization, long-term care, or additional post-op fees." In other words, the real taxpayer burden of trans inmates is higher still.
Given the lack of support for biological women, many fellow women inmates were disappointed not to see some of their favorite organizations supporting SB311. Where, they wonder, are California Coalition for Women's Prisoners, Survived & Punished, Ella Baker Center, Sister Warriors, Initiate Justice, ARC, and the ACLU, to name a few?
As of February 5, 2025, the California Division of Correctional Policy Research and Internal Oversight Office of Research revealed the following snapshot of the situation:
- 871 men who requested to transfer to women's prisons
- 45 men are approved
- 107 were denied
- 123 changed their minds during classification committee review
- 206 are pending classification committee review (a step before coming to women's prisons)
- 9 transferred back to men's prison (voluntarily)
- 2 transferred back (involuntary; one for rape and witness intimidation charges)
One can conclude there are currently forty-five men housed within the two women's prisons, CCWF and California Institution for Women (CIW), and the problems are ongoing. As recently as April 23, 2025, a biological male already convicted of the rape of a minor, was accused of sexual assault inside CCWF. The victim said the biological male exposed his penis in a general population bathroom, thereby violating the Prison Rape Elimination Act. It is important to note that the victim chose not to elaborate on this accusation, for fear of retaliation.
While the accused was detained, pending the outcome of the investigation, women came out the woodwork to discuss crimes and sexual harassment the accused committed against them. "He doesn't belong here, he's a convicted rapist. He needs to be removed from the building and the prison," one victim said. "He's having his cake and eating it too," another resident stated. "This is Hometown Buffet, all he can eat," a third woman commented.
As the Inmate Advisory Council advised that the accused would go through the process and be back in "two weeks," women in CCWF hurried to fill empty bunks to avoid sharing their cells. An elderly female inmate said, "I have had four [men] dumped on me. I have PTSD badly, I can't take it anymore."
To support the passage of SB311, incarcerated women and their families, friends, and supporters are encouraged to write letters to Senator Shannon Grove: Capitol Office, 1021 O Street, Room 7150, Sacramento CA. The women would like to thank everyone who pushed for SB311 thus far, and Ursula wrapped it best: "Women just want to go to the bathroom without seeing a man who's so big next to them. We are uncomfortable, and I'm sorry, you just can't change that."
Tomiekia Johnson is a prison journalist. She has received recommendation for early parole (commutation), which has been accepted and acknowledged by Governor Gavin Newsom, though a date has not been determined.
