A judge in California ordered inmate Tremaine Carroll to be referred to using female pronouns because Carroll “deserves dignity.”
Carroll is on trial for allegedly impregnating another inmate and raping two others. The individual was housed in a women’s prison after declaring himself to be a woman.
As reported by ABC 7, Madera County District Attorney Sally Moreno asserted the inmate is “not a woman in any sense of the word.”
“After his first cellmate became pregnant and was moved to Los Angeles, two other cellmates of his had complained that he had raped them, so we have filed rape charges against this inmate,” Moreno said. “This is a particular issue in this case because it’s confusing to the jury. In California, rape is a crime that has to be accomplished by a man.”
Supervising Deputy District Attorney Eric Dutemple called the matter “insane.”
“It’s just absolutely insane that a victim would have to get on the stand and police their pronoun usage when trying to recite one of the scariest times of their lives,” Dutemple said.
Carroll has been transferred to the men’s Salinas Valley State Prison.
California’s SB 132, called The Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, requires the “Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to, during initial intake and classification, and in a private setting, ask each individual entering into the custody of the department to specify the individual’s gender identity whether the individual identifies as transgender, nonbinary, or intersex, and their gender pronoun and honorific.” It further requires the department to “house the person in a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference, except as specified.”
