An alarming study from Canada‘s prisons department has revealed that nearly half of the country’s male-to-female trans inmates has a history of sexual offenses.
Research from Correctional Service Canada (CRC) shows that 44 percent of the nation’s trans women detainees has a history of sexual offending.
Even more worrying is how 71 percent of them were caged for murder or sex crimes.
The study has stoked fears about the safety of natal women detainees in Canadian lockups, who have to share cells and blocks with detainees who were men at birth.
Maxime Bernier, leader of the conservative People’s Party of Canada, called the policy ‘insane’.
‘These rapist men pretending to be women are sent to women’s prisons and allowed to assault more women,’ he posted on Twitter.
Research from Correctional Service Canada (CRC) shows that 44 percent of the nation’s trans women detainees has a history of sexual offending
Heather Mason, a Canadian woman former detainee, led a series of protests last year aimed at kicking trans male-to-female inmates out of women’s prisons
CRC studied the 99 gender-diverse inmates in the prison system between 2017 and 2020 for its 68-page report, called an Examination of Gender Diverse Offenders.
Some 61 of them were male-to-female transitioners, it found. They had an average age of 43 and about half of them were indigenous Canadians.
Most of them had been convicted of violent offenses, including murders, sex crimes, robberies, and assaults.
In most cases, they had committed those crimes as men, before transitioning.
Their victims were mostly women and children, who typically suffered death or serious harm, researchers said.
Heather Mason, a Canadian former detainee who campaigns for traditional single sex prisons, said: ‘Basically, trans prisoners are more likely to be the most dangerous ones.’
Canada in 2017 started housing trans detainees in facilities that matched their gender identity — not their biological sex.
That policy was supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Since 2022, requests from trans inmates to switch facilities have been reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Among Canada’s historical male-to-female trans detainees is Catherine Lynn, who while identifying as male in 1995 murdered an upstairs neighbor and had sex with her corpse.
Lynn was reportedly housed at the Grand Valley Institution women’s prison, in Kitchener, Ontario.
Likewise, Adam Laboucan, a pedophile who raped a three-month-old infant, was granted permission to move to a women’s ward at the Fraser Valley Institution after transitioning in prison to a woman, Tara Desousa.
Adam Laboucan, a pedophile who raped a three-month-old infant, was granted permission to move to a women’s ward at the Fraser Valley Institution after transitioning in prison to living as a woman, Tara Desousa
One of Laboucan’s dating profiles, where he goes by the name Tara Desousa
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, said allowing ‘rapist men pretending to be women’ to serve their time in women’s prisons was ‘insane’
Trans rights groups say trans detainees are most often victims of abuse and all of them deserve protection. Trans male-to-female detainees in men’s prisons are at great risk of violence and often trade sex for protection.
Women’s rights groups in the US and Canada say ever more male-to-female trans detainees are serving time in women’s prisons, despite rising incidents of rape and other horrors in what were once women-only cellblocks.
They point to a 2011 Swedish study, which found that man-to-woman transitioners retain a ‘male level of criminality’, meaning they are more prone to crime, including violent offenses, than women, even after taking hormones or undergoing surgery.
The US public is apparently against letting trans women into women’s prisons. A survey of 3,500 voters in March 2021 found that 48 percent opposed trans women sharing cells with natal females, while 34 percent approved.
The US public is apparently against letting trans women into women’s prisons. A survey of 3,500 voters in March 2021 found that 48 percent opposed trans women sharing cells with natal females, while 34 percent approved
