They say they never feel safe - but who are they?

Trans prisoners, we're told, are the most vulnerable of the most marginalised. Struggling to get recognition, find the basic level of safety anyone should expect, all while stuck in an institution filled with men, some guilty of horrific crimes.

They are in a constant state of fear and despair and should be held in the female estate as a matter of urgency. At least, that is the rhetoric from almost every major news outlet (for more on press depictions of trans prisoners, see Transgressions and the prison resource page on this blog here.)

KQED have released a series of articles and videos on the plight of these prisoners, and they're not alone - there's plenty of media interest in this specific demographic - 1% of the male prison population. Because of the sole focus on the prisoner and their side of the story, it's not often possible to establish the crimes that have sent them down often for decades in high security. The prisoners use different names, normally without giving their born names, and give sanitised, abridged versions of their crimes, if they say anything at all. 

I have sympathy for any vulnerable people in prison. It is without doubt a place of violence, threat and, often, misery. But the endless focus on transwomen prisoners, rather than any other cohort - young, effeminate, gay, with learning or behavioural problems, or traumatised and mentally unwell, is vastly disproportionate to the numbers.

There's endless dismissal of women's concerns, with lines like this "One inmate, who is a trans man, expressed his response to these claims, which are founded in debunked myths that trans people access female spaces to prey on cisgender women"

Founded in debunked myths? Have they never seen this blog?!

“The complaints from the cis women here are that these are men coming here and they’ve been traumatized by men and so they shouldn’t have to live with them,” Mychal Concepcion told the Los Angeles Times. “I have repeatedly said that they’re women” "

from THEM. Which is nice. Helpful.

However here (copy of paywalled LA Times article) is a woman in prison, Tomieka Johnson, saying "that she has survived domestic violence from a man and that it would be triggering to live with transgender people who haven’t had gender-affirming surgery. “I do think they should be safe, but it infringes on my right to be safe as well,” she said."

Does anyone care?

So I went through the inmates covered in this video, and this article, and did some digging. 

First up we have 

Yekaterina Wesa Patience - Robert Brendan Foster

Born Robert Brendan Foster (a somewhat less exotic moniker), Yekaterina, or Kat, features in many exposès and has a calm, centred disposition. It would seem.

“Since I was a child, I felt like I was a girl,” said Yekaterina when we sat down to talk. “No matter what nobody told me, I just never, I never saw myself as a guy.”

"I identify as a woman. I should be in a woman's prison"

"Yekaterina Wesa Patience, said she was twice raped in prison in the 1990s.

"Patience, 44, said she’d “love” to transfer to a women’s prison as well: "I think that would eliminate a lot of the problems of being sexually assaulted or being raped, pressured."

Why has Foster / Patience been in prison so long, and is it relevant? I think it is.

Foster was found guilty of the 1994 murder by slashing and strangulation of Tairree Lynn West, 25. This was a gang robbery involving him, his girlfriend and another couple, all of whom knew the victim.

After trial her daughter gave a statement “But none of this will bring my mom back,” said Luchessa (also known as Ashley), a sixth-grader who West had adopted. 

The gang had forced entry to West's home at around 1:30 am, hoping to rob the place. But soon enough it was to be a bloodbath.

The L.A. Times details how the men attacked West with a butcher's knife, stabbing and slashing her, while the women set about strangling her daughter, Ashley, and six month old baby, Carlie. 

Yes - they strangled a baby of six months. 

After losing consciousness, Ashley came round, staggered into the front room to dial 911 and was slashed across the face before the gang fled.

Family and friends reported that Foster's girlfriend, Erica Olson, was a close friend of West, and she had let her live in the apartment. Foster, however, had recently angered West after he stole $100 from her car.

Reading from other contemporaneous articles, it appears the zen-like Yekaterina was the driving force behind this assault and murder and inflictedthe fatal wounds on Tairree West and the slash on her daughter.

Thanks to the incredibly brave actions of Ashley, she and her baby sister survived, although Ashley was scarred for life from the slash which reached from her throat right up to just under her eye.

● https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-01-18-me-25892-story.html

● https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-06-14-me-12957-story.html

● https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-17-cb-23877-story.html

● https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-07-14-cb-15391-story.html

Next - David 'Bella' Birrell

"They had a motto back in those days: It was either fight or fuck."

From KQED: "David Bella Birrell also said she’d been sexually assaulted in prison. "

Grot Property: Vulnerable sex-prey, Birrell

Birrell was found guilty of 1st degree murder. "A man and his wife were arrested Tuesday in the slaying of a teen-age orphan for whom they had provided a home."

"David Birrell, 28, was booked into Riverside County Jail on suspicion of killing Hope Elfman, 17, who was raped and strangled." 

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1981/04/21/A-man-and-his-wife-were-arrested-Tuesday-in/7751356677200/ 

"Birrell told reporters after the girl's death that she had made a lot of enemies and would not always follow house rules the family set down for her."

Hope Elfman was found dead, sprawled out naked on the patio of Birrell's house. 

She was an orphan. Her mother had recently died, and her father had died some time before that. 

She was 17, and had not only been raped, but also violated after death, with objects forced inside of her vagina. Less than a week prior to her murder, Birrell had increased her life insurance, with his wife forging Elfman's signature.

Like Robert Brandon Foster, David Birrell escaped the death penalty 

Dallas 'Rachel' Goosen

 'I was just sitting in my cell, just my bra and shorts, facing the wall doing nothing. That officer came in read me the riot act' 

(In this quote it appears Goosen is being accused of being sexually inappropriate. Later it emerges Goosen lives in a multi-occupancy dorm, not a cell.)

https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/DA/Press-Releases/Parole-Denied-to-Child-Molester/

"In 1993, Goosen was convicted of seventy-six counts of child molestation involving 4 separate victims. The victims were ages 6, 5, 4, and 3 years old at the time. Goosen was sentenced to 158 years in prison for his crimes" (the longest sentence ever given in county history) 

"Many of the crimes were videotaped by one of Goosen’s adult co-defendants. The tapes contained evidence of extraordinarily depraved acts of child molestation perpetrated by Goosen"

Goosen is a depraved and worthless individual. I don't give a solitary fuck what Goosen feels about himself, his rights or anything else. He has destroyed the childhoods of at least four children with unforgivable crimes. He has no value to offer society or anyone and should never, ever be reappearing in their lives via a fawning media piece. 

Because let's not forget that is a likely enough scenario: one of his victims was scrolling social media, or browsing YouTube and saw that face.

I mean, what the fuck, KQED? Who thought launching this man's image back into the world was OK? 

How in the living fuck did anyone think this deeply malevolent, cancerous piece of shit was worth representing?

Ave Maria Fey - David Hooker

I've been hiding so long — the mannerisms — I've kind of tucked them in and locked it away," said Ave Maria Fey (Ave Maria - a Catholic prayer praising Mary, mother of god...)

According to KQED "Fey, like Patience, ended up homeless and a victim of child sex trafficking on the streets around L.A., she said." 

(*Note - none of this is confirmed. I see no evidence produced whatsoever, and while it may be true it's a bit of a stretch to take these claims seriously when they do not even accurately list their names or crimes)

"Fey said she first went to federal prison at age 20 for robbing banks. After a few years, she came out as transgender. After she was released, Fey lived as a woman until she landed in California state prison in 1995 for the arson death of her adopted father. His death haunts her to this day. "Worst thing I've ever done in my life," she said."

Ave Maria Fey, born David Hooker, was convicted of first degree murder. Here's something that you will be unlikely to find anywhere chanting the trans rights mantras - https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-court-of-appeal/1389973.html - 

"Thomas Hooker was nearly blind, in the advanced stages of diabetes, had to be regularly taken to the hospital for dialysis, had several toes amputated, and had difficulty moving without assistance. He lived in Palmdale with Joy Hooker, his third or fourth wife, and David Hooker (appellant), his 30-year-old adopted son. Joy and David were constant companions. They went to dinner and to the gym together."

"At about 3:45 a.m., Deanne (Thomas Hooker's daughter who lived nearby) and her husband Robert were awakened by Joy Hooker's pounding on their door, telling them to call 9-1-1. Robert ran to the Hooker house and saw appellant in the living room hosing down a burning loveseat. There was smoke inside the house, wallpaper had peeled off the walls, and plastic objects had melted. Robert asked appellant where Thomas Hooker was and appellant said he didn't know.

"Robert crawled to Thomas Hooker's bedroom and found him on the floor without a pulse. About five minutes later appellant came to Robert's assistance. Mr Hooker died from smoke inhalation. 

"Thomas Hooker had told his nurse he knew Joy and David were having an affair and feared that if he didn't oust them from the house they would kill him;  Joy's ex-husband, Robert Laughton, said Joy had recently told him she was tired of caring for her husband and had thought of ways to get rid of him;"

"David Hooker spent a decade in federal prison for bank robbery and threatening President George Bush while incarcerated. He had been out of prison just over six months when he set the fatal fire." https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-11-09-me-1224-story.html

I don't know about you, but it doesn't sound so much like a tragic accident to me after reading that. And nowhere is there any reference to Hooker presenting as female. He was, however, having an affair with the wife of his adopted father, who had given him a home after his decade in jail. 

Thomas Hooker was a retired police sergeant, and had claimed to be the inspiration for the character TJ Hooker. He was in such a sad condition, after his body was recovered one police officer described him as having the sickest body he had ever seen. He couldn't even eat unaided.

Despite Hooker snr being in a downstairs bedroom at the front of the house, the couple had made no effort to rescue him. They did however rescue their dog.

"Ava Fey said she would likely "run" to a women’s prison. 

"Living with women would also offer something that’s eluded her for decades: women whom she could emulate". 

Yeah, that sounds reasonable - place heterosexual murderers in the women's estate so they can be 'emulated'. What's wrong with all the lovely ladies appearing as co-stars in this little film, though, eh? Being transphobic now are we?

Throughout these reports are frequent references to Carmen Guerrero, a transwoman murdered by his cellmate.

"When Miguel Crespo moved in, Guerrero, 48, began filling out a form that prosecutors believe she intended to use as part of a transfer request.

""He stated he is not compatible with me. I’m worried to be raped again," Guerrero wrote.

 "He should never have been in that cell with the girl" said Fatima Shabazz, former inmate (I don't know for what) and advocate who worked on the new transgender dignity, agency and respect bill."

Well, this appears to be true. Crespo was a danger to Guerrero: Crespo had made that clear. But does any of this mean these inmates should be incarcerated alonside women? 

Guerrero was serving a life sentence for the murder of his long term partner, which he committed while their teen daughter cowered upstairs. 

I wonder how many of these prisoners have been abused in prison because of their crimes, as opposed to their identity?

Shiloh Heavenly Quine - Rodney James

"California corrections settled with the prisoner, Shiloh Heavenly Quine, in 2015, agreeing to perform the sex reassignment surgery"

Shiloh Heavenly Quine, who was (hilariously) born Rodney James.

These reborn prisoners choose such whimsical, peaceful names, don't they?

Quine and an accomplice kidnapped and fatally shot 33-year-old Shahid Ali Baig, a father of three, in Los Angeles, making off with just $80 and his car 

"My dad begged for his life,” said Farida Baig, who tried to block Quine’s surgery through the courts. “It made me dizzy and sick. I’m helping pay for his surgery. I live in California. It’s kind of like a slap in the face.” 

Out of the thousands of trans prisoners in America, it seems incomprehensible to me that the ones chosen for these sympathetic, sensationalist stories have committed such obscene crimes. 

Where are the transwomen stuck in prison for minor offences, for those committed under duress, during mental health crises or in trauma? What we are being told here is these people deserve exalted respect and care because of their identities. We are subtly told their crimes don't matter, because they are victims in the end. As well as the beginning. 

What about women in prison? How many of them commit crimes to this scale? How well equipped are they to manage with these biological males who have raped and murdered?

"In a circle of women stretching, Mark Peaches Cates, 58, said she’d never had the chance to exercise with just transgender women. Gym time with men had made her uncomfortable.

"You couldn’t be yourself," said Cates, who is in prison for second-degree murder."

One; it seems abhorrent to call people like Dallas Goosen, David Birrell or Robert Foster, 'women'. They do not look like women, they have all only transitioned in the most minor way, they have committed terrible crimes. Two, the joy the inmates get from a weekly activity which allows them to wear women's clothing is a tad indicative of autogynephilia - the most common fetish to present in sex offenders and serial killers.

Sylvia Boots born Amara Vadillo

https://zagria.blogspot.com/2011/04/amara-vadillo-197-sex-worker.html?m=1

Boots sticks out in the film as he actually does resemble a woman. He's not interviewed and appears as merely a background figure. Boots was a porn star who became embroiled in a vendetta against a fellow trans porn star and ultimately shot dead a third transwoman porn actor, in what was possibly a mistaken identity case. It's difficult to find any information on the case and Boots' fans are probably the only ones talking about it. Brief report, halfway down this article

Despite my best efforts, I have been unable to find out more on these prisoners:

James 'Star' Henderson

James 'Star' Henderson (right) and Mark 'Peaches' Cate in blue

James Star Henderson (left) puts makeup on Dallas Rachael Goosen (the worst child molester in Sonama county history)

Henderson could be James Henderson here - "Defendant James Henderson appeals from a judgment and conviction imposed after he was found guilty of robbery. "Defendant's prior conviction was for an offense of oral copulation", defined as - "any person who participated in an act of oral copulation with another person who was under 14 years of age and more than 10 years younger than he, or when the act was accomplished against the victim's will by means of force, violence, duress, menace or fear" link here. Or it could be this - rape of a woman and armed standoff with police. Or it could something else entirely, we don't know. These are the only cases I have found with that name in that state. Of course, this is speculation based on the barest facts. I wonder if allowing those convicted of the most violent crimes the right to change their names is a good idea. Does KQED or NBC care they have given oxygen to the worst child sex offender in Sonoma county's history, bringing his face and voice to the masses, including his victims?

Mark 'Peaches' Cates - 'You gotta learn to pick up a knife and fight like a man'

Convicted of murder. No further details have been found. Interestingly, Cates makes it clear he does not want to move to Chowchilla, the women's prison. "I don't wanna be around women, I love men". The safety issues are clearly not a concern for Cates....

Cary Keenan Smith 'CJay'

Smith is serving time for assault with a deadly weapon, and has been in San Quentin, where he was apparently raped over 2,000 times, and then further persecuted by prison officials who wanted Smith to drop the complaints. 

San Quentin is a notorious prison, and Smith now resides in Chino with the prisoners above. Smith was jailed for 25 yrs to life in 1998. That's a very heavy stretch, even by American standards. "Under California Penal Code 245 PC, the crime of assault with a deadly weapon can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony, and carries a maximum sentence of up to 4 years in jail or prison."

A personal note - Smith came across as likeable to me. It seems incomprehensible he committed such a violent crime. I suppose the passing of time alongside the frivolous subjects being discussed - makeup, mainly - and the sob story can be a powerful antidote to reality.

Jarrett Angel Williams, a transwoman housed at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. I can find no history on him.

Jazzy Paradise Scott

We are told Scott is serving his third sentence for second degree robbery. He appears to have spent the majority of his life inside.

Makayla Fennell

Could be Michael Kennedy 'M-K' Fennell, a registered sex offender but, of course, I don't know.

NBC News "Transgender prisoners are almost never housed according to their identity, an investigation found.
That’s putting many in danger." But, of course, specialist wings set aside for trans prisoners are not the answer - that isn't affirming them, and is exclusionary. What they really need, we are told, is to be placed in the women's estate.

In this video from NBC news, the narrator refers to 'transgender females' which is a stupid, ideologically-drunk way to describe transwomen, i.e. biological males.

Here is Michelle Kailani Calvin

Apparently, Calvin was 'robbing women for their purses and make-up, cos I was too afraid to go buy my own things, 'cos of the backlash on the streets'.

"Calvin, 48, said she has fought off three rape attempts by fellow prisoners. The first time, in 2015, she said her cellmate hit her so hard she slammed into the cell’s door". “I asked to go to a women’s prison, because I am a woman,” "Calvin described the trauma of her 15 years as a transgender woman incarcerated in men’s prisons" 

Calvin also explains how they told their arresting officers 'I was born male, but at night I identify as female' which sounds more like prostitution than trans identity, and I'm guessing at least part of this occurred 'on the streets'.

He is serving a life sentence for robbery and car jacking. Sounds a little more serious than stealing makeup.

Kelly Renard Blackwell, Inmate ID #E72399

Age 53, Blackwell is pictured nowhere online as far as I can see. He received life without possibility of parole, and has been inside for 30 years - which is a bit heavy! Why? 

Candice Destiny-Rene Love 'I love who I am and I love being me, but after the rape and attack, I wondered, if I wasn’t trans, would I still be going through what I’m going through? I don’t think so.' Love was 34 at the time of publication, and there are no further details.

Jasmine Jones 

This formerly incarcerated transwoman is now a legal assistant TGI - the Transgender, Gender variant & Intersex Justice Project. I don't know if the fact Jones works within the legal field, in some description or another, implies his convictions are for lesser offences?

Jones tells Refinery29.

"Instead of looking at us as we present ourselves, correctional officers and prison staff look at us as our former selves and use incorrect pronouns, and tear us down psychologically" - HEARTBREAKING!

Bamby Salcedo 

A Los Angeles-based transgender activist who spent 14 years in California jails. For why, we do not know, apart from references to Salcedo's early involvement with gangs, drugs and prostitution. Perhaps his notoriety and position suggests his crimes were not heinous?

In addition, Kristi Legget, here, incarcerated 23 and a half years at the time of recording

Legget, especially with one 't', is a very unusual name. The only thing I could find with that name was this - from the late '90s, and thus lining up chronologically:

Naomi Turner has, at time of recording, been in prison for three years

And Jolina Olivia Diaz inside for 30 years 

And the two wheelchair users below (not Goosen, right)

...and another inmate, intriguingly called Fancy Lipsey, who is also here with a positive smorgasbord of fellow felonious TiMs:

All are featured without any background, and introduction of Wiener's bill I imagine the majority are now in the female estate.

But my rhetorical question at the beginning, does anyone care, is fairly redundant. Women in jail are perceived to be fearless, dirty-fighting alleycats who rule the wings with an iron fist. Ironically, for the gender-merchants, women who break the cardinal rule of respectability have breached norms so egregiously, they are outside of their concerns. 

These violent, predatory men, however, do head tilt, thus rancid old giffers like Goosen and Birrell will be raped silly by the 

lacivious men.

We are bombarded with stories and reports on these people, listing their allegations as if proven, and being asked to feel sympathy for them - the least we should expect is some level of honesty and disclosure.

(If anyone knows anything more, please let me know. I promise to disclose it, whether it be terrible crimes or cases worthy of sympathy)

Thinking of TGI and this quote from Californian department of corrections that they are "committed to addressing the safety concerns" of transgender, intersex and nonbinary prisoners" I would like to point out that 'intersex' does not belong here, and they really must stop conflating medical conditions with gender identity. 

The fact people with variations of sexual development continue to be lumped in here is just additional proof of the anti-science rage du jour, and it's deeply unethical. 'Intersex' is not a term used in medicine anymore, as it is misleading and offensive. People with variations/differences of sexual development are still male or female. They never get the choice of identifying as 'intersex'.

The new bill of Weiner's is called the Transgender dignity, agency and respect bill. This has passed, despite former female prisoners protesting; a file pressed against the move by female prisoners being dropped because they had all been released. 

Despite there being serious concerns more broadly. Despite guards stating they are concerned for the women's safety and the motivation of the trans inmates and being forced to strip search members of the opposite sex; the crimes committed by the trans inmates and their transition time and status being irrelevant, or the problems which have dogged Canada after similar legislation. 

They do not even need a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria. 

“I’m authoring this legislation to ensure they can be housed where they’re safest"

"Transgender inmates are some of the most marginalized members of society," said Sen. Scott Wiener. 

Thankfully, KHSU who b the KQED story did act with some journalistic integrity, noting "KQED could not verify most of the alleged attacks reported by Patience and the other prisoners in this story"

We are also told "Wiener’s bill would also bring California in line with federal standards laid out in the Prison Rape Elimination Act, or PREA" “Transgender people in prison — particularly trans women — are at severe risk of assault and sexual victimization because they’re automatically housed by their birth-assigned sex,” sen Scott Wiener said in a statement. 

- Ok, but let's not count our chickens just yet, hey? Let's consider, for a moment, this just might increase rape.

I hope and pray that some day, the women left to absorb these prisoners are listened to. "Today, most transgender prisoners continue to be housed automatically with the sex they were assigned at birth, which is often dangerous for them" well, who cares about women, especially those who've broken the golden rule of behaving and being nice, huh?

For more information in the threat facing incarcerated women, please see keep-prisons-single-sex.org.uk/california