A transgender inmate, identifying as female, will soon be transferred to a women’s prison, Minnesota’s Department of Corrections (DOC) announced on Thursday.
Christina Lusk is presently
housed at the Minnesota Correctional Facility (MCF) in Moose Lake from a 2018 drug
conviction. Since 2008, Lusk has identified as a woman. In 2022, Lusk sued the Minnesota DOC while seeking gender-affirming surgery and a transfer to MCF-Shakopee—the state’s only female prison. In a June 1
press release, the DOC announced that Lusk would be transferred to the female prison next week.
According to the terms of the settlement, the DOC also agreed to pay Lusk $495,000, which includes roughly $250,000 in legal fees.
The DOC’s new transgender
policy that came into effect in January covers medical treatments for transgenders while allowing them to request a facility that matches their gender identity.
Transferring Lusk to Shakopee would be the first
time that the Minnesota DOC has moved a transgender person to a facility matching their gender identity. This is also the first such transfer under the agency’s new transgender policy.
“As part of settling the lawsuit and in accordance with the DOC’s new transgender policy, the DOC has agreed to provide her access to a transgender healthcare specialist to determine if gender-affirming surgery is medically necessary. The DOC will also assist her in obtaining surgery if the specialist determines it is necessary.”
DOC Commissioner Paul Schnell pointed out that the department is “constitutionally obligated” to provide Lusk with the necessary medical care, including treatments for gender dysphoria.
The transfer decision has attracted criticism online. “Take another bow, #Minnesota! Look at the fresh insanity we’re celebrating now,” Matthew RJ Brodsky, a senior fellow at Gold Institute for International Strategy,
said in a June 1 tweet.
Minnesota has now joined 10 other
states and the District of Columbia in approving incarcerated individuals to be transferred to facilities consistent with their gender identity rather than the gender assigned at birth.
Lusk is scheduled to be released from incarceration in May next year. At present, there are 48 transgender individuals among the more than 8,000 incarcerated individuals in the state.
Harming Female Prisoners
Back in April 2022, a transgender
inmate at Rikers Island, Bronx, was sentenced to seven years in prison after being found guilty of raping a female prisoner while housed in the female section of the jail.
In July 2022, another transgender
inmate who had impregnated two women in an all-female prison in New Jersey was transferred away from the facility.
The inmate, who is a male by birth, only began transitioning after entering the prison system. He had consensual relationships with two female inmates, resulting in pregnancy.
Internationally, the
issue of housing transgenders in female prisons is a much-debated one. In August last year, pro-women advocates launched a petition asking for the removal of male prisoners identifying as female from women’s prisons.
The petition came after prisoners at a women’s prison in Victoria called for transferring a transgender inmate who had a history of sexual violence against women and kids.
In the UK, an outcry erupted in January after it came to light that a transgender woman who was
convicted of raping two women was to be sent to a female prison. Following the criticism, a minister later
confirmed that the transgender would not be sent to a female jail.
In a January
interview with EpochTV’s California Insider, Amie Ichikawa, who runs a nonprofit for incarcerated women, said that California’s law allowing men identifying as women to be housed at female prisons is creating an environment of “total chaos emotionally” within the women’s prison system.
“It’s the worst human science project I’ve ever seen,” she said. “This is very callous and brazen psychological warfare that is occurring right in our own state, being fully funded by taxpayers’ dollars.”
The California law was signed into effect by Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020. Since then, Ichikawa claims to have received more phone calls, letters, and emails from incarcerated women who express fear about their safety, STDs, and pregnancy.
Women’s cells in California house eight inmates. This has led to concerns among some female prisoners that they might end up getting housed with a man who identifies as a female and has a history of rape.
“That’s a very tight space to share with anyone,” she said. “But even more so with someone who has a history of violence against women.”
