An alarming study by Canada’s Prisons Department has found that nearly half of the country’s male-to-female trans inmates have a history of sex offenses.
Research by Correctional Service Canada (CRC) shows that 44 percent of trans women in the country have a history of sexual offenses.
Even more worrying is how 71 percent of them were incarcerated for murder or sex crimes.
The study has fueled fears about the safety of female inmates in Canadian lock-ups, who must share cells and blocks with inmates who were male at birth.
Maxime Bernier, leader of the conservative People’s Party of Canada, called the policy “insane.”
“These rapists posing as women are being sent to women’s prisons and allowed to assault even more women,” he wrote on Twitter.
Research from Correctional Service Canada (CRC) shows that 44 percent of trans women in the country have a history of sexual offenses
Heather Mason, a former Canadian inmate, led a series of protests last year to kick transgender 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 a Gender-Diverse Offenders Study.
About 61 of them were male-to-female transitions, it turned out. They had an average age of 43 and about half of them were Native Canadians.
Most of them had been convicted of violent crimes, including murder, sex crimes, robberies and assaults.
In most cases, they had committed those crimes as men before they passed over.
Their victims were mostly women and children, who usually suffered death or serious damage, researchers said.
Heather Mason, a Canadian former convict campaigning for traditional same-sex prisons, said: “Essentially, trans prisoners are probably the most dangerous.”
In 2017, Canada began 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 prisoners to switch facilities are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Among Canada’s historic male-to-female trans inmates is Catherine Lynn, who identified as male in 1995 and murdered an upstairs neighbor and had sex with her corpse.
Lynn was reportedly in the women’s prison at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ontario.
Similarly, Adam Laboucan, a pedophile who raped a three-month-old baby, was given permission to move to a women’s ward at the Fraser Valley Institution after passing to a woman, Tara Desousa, while in prison.
Adam Laboucan, a pedophile who raped a three-month-old baby, was allowed to move to a women’s ward at the Fraser Valley Institution after transitioning to life as a woman in prison, Tara Desousa
One of Laboucan’s dating profiles, where his name is Tara Desousa
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, said it is insane to allow “rapists posing as women” to serve their time in women’s prisons.
Trans rights groups say trans prisoners are the most likely victims of abuse and all deserve protection. Transmale-to-female inmates in male prisons are at high risk of violence and often trade sex for protection.
Women’s rights groups in the US and Canada say increasing numbers of male-to-female trans inmates are spending their time in women’s prisons, despite rising incidents of rape and other horrors in what were once female-only cellblocks.
They point to one Swedish study from 2011which found that male-to-female transitional individuals maintain a “masculine level of crime,” meaning they are more prone to crime, including violent crime, than women, even after taking hormones or undergoing surgery.
The American public is apparently opposed to allowing 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 birth women, while 34 percent agreed.
The American public is apparently opposed to allowing 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 birth women, while 34 percent agreed
