Women protesting the possible transfer of convicted killer Dana Rivers—a biological man who identifies as female—to a women’s prison were attacked outside of the Alameda County Superior Courthouse in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 5.
The women, representing mainly feminist and lesbian groups, said they are opposed to a California law that allows male inmates who self-identify as women to request to be housed in women’s prisons.
The women, who wore sashes reading “Woman Adult Human Female,” and carried signs saying “No Men In Women’s Prisons” and “Dana Rivers Is A Man,” were also pelted with pies in the video.
Rivers, born David Warfield, was convicted last month on three counts of first-degree murder and felony arson. He was found guilty in the 2016 slayings of lesbian couple Charlotte Reed and Patricia Wright, and their teenage son, Benny Diambu-Wright, as well as setting their home in Oakland on fire.
According to multiple news reports, Rivers shot Reed multiple times and stabbed and bludgeoned her. He also shot Wright twice and the teen in the heart.
A hearing to determine Rivers’ mental competency at the time of the murders began Dec. 5. If found “insane,” Rivers is expected to be sent to a mental hospital for part of or all of his impending sentence.
Rivers waived his right to a jury for the insanity plea phase of the trial.
If the judge overseeing the trial determines Rivers was sane when he committed the murders, it is unclear if he will be sent to a women’s or men’s prison.
Several sources told The Epoch Times he is currently being held in protective custody in the women’s section of the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, Calif., in Alameda County.
“We are firmly opposed to housing any men in women’s prisons under any circumstances, including Dana Rivers,” Kara Dansky, president of Women’s Declaration International, told The Epoch Times preceding the protest. “All men are male, regardless of any administration of hormones and/or surgeries, and our view is that women’s prisons ought to be for female inmates only, which is in alignment with the principles of international law.”
Dansky said the women had planned the peaceful protest to demand justice and stand in solidarity with lesbians and incarcerated women.
In 2020, the California State Legislature passed Senate Bill 132, The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, authored by State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The law, which was enacted on Jan. 1, 2021, allows prisoners who identify as transgender, non-binary, and intersex “to request to be housed and searched in a manner consistent with their gender identity,” according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
There are currently 1,657 incarcerated people in California prisons who identify as transgender, non-binary and intersex,” according to the corrections and rehabilitation department. The agency additionally reports 342 men requested transfers to women’s jails since the end of November. Of those, 47 have been approved for transfer, 19 were denied, and 31 changed their minds. The remaining requests remain under review.
“It’s happening in numerous other states. We just rarely hear about it because the media doesn’t like to talk about it,” Dansky said. “We know that the state of Washington also houses male prisoners in the women’s prison on the basis of their so-called female gender identity. We know that it’s happening in New Jersey on the basis of a settlement that was entered into between the state and the ACLU.”
Danksy, who is also the author of “The Abolition of Sex: How the ‘Transgender Agenda Harms Women and Girls,” said her chapter of the organization has more than 5,000 U.S. signatories supporting its declaration, “ to advance women’s sex-based rights in law and throughout society all over the world.”
Lierre Keith, of the Women’s Liberation Front, a group that is suing the state over the issue of biological males in women’s prisons, said female inmates are “living in terror” of violent male prisoners entering women’s facilities.
“Right now, in California, any man can simply declare he is a woman and get transferred to a women’s prison—even if he’s murdered two women, even if he stabbed a woman 28 times in the face,” she said.
Jesika Gonzalez of TERF Collective, a group “working to end the international campaign of female erasure that is transgender ideology,” also spoke at the protest.
“In California ... even the most dangerous men are moved to women’s prisons upon request. Dana Rivers is the kind of man that proves the need for single-sex prisons,” Gonzalez said.
