10th April 2021
Campaign in Response to The Biden Executive Order 13988
Safety in US Prisons
When President Biden came to power in January he signed an executive order entitled ‘Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation (13988).’ This was seen by many as a huge blow to women’s rights in the USA. The order gives precedent to a self defined ‘gender identity’ over biological sex. The implications of this will be far reaching and dangerous for women, most seriously for safety in women’s prisons. Keep Prisons Single Sex now have their first US campaign.
An executive order gives direction to federal agencies, but it can also effect state and local governments through federal funding. Conflating gender and sex could not only result in mixed sex prisons, but could also mean inmates being searched or examined by a guard of the opposite sex and require female guards to be in physical contact with male inmates.
Vulnerable males should be protected, but not at the expense of women. Women are not human shields and deserve safe, single sex facilities. We have already seen the consequences of allowing males into the women’s estate. In the UK, a man, Karen White has been convicted of sexual assaulting women in prison.
Women in prison are highly likely to have experienced male violence and are often vulnerable. The dignity and safety of women should not be handed away.
Action
Email the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons before 30th April. Details including a template letter can be found here.
You can follow the campaigns and work of Keep Prisons Single Sex US and UK.