Controversial cohabitation
Federally sentenced criminals in Canada can now be incarcerated in the prison that matches the gender identity of their choice, without even having to undertake hormone therapy or transformative surgery. A dozen inmates, often with a very violent past, were transferred to women's prisons after declaring themselves transgender. Some have sown terror there.
"Male violence is discharged in women's prisons"While a man, Steven Mehlenbacher was not an altar boy. Addicted to cocaine, LSD and crystal meth since the age of 13, he has been involved in bank robberies and violent robberies, going so far as to cut a taxi driver's hand with a knife to steal his vehicle.
His successive convictions for assault, possession of weapons, disguise for criminal purposes and even
escape have earned him more than 14 years in prison.
Somewhere between 2018 and 2019, after more than 10 years of incarceration, Mehlenbacher began to identify as a woman. "Steven" then officially became "Samantha" in the eyes of the Correctional Service of Canada. Prison authorities transferred her to Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario.
There, in a supervised housing unit, fellow inmates quickly accused her of lying about her gender identity to have sex with women, court documents seen by La Presse reveal.
"Male violence is discharged in women's prisons"While a man, Steven Mehlenbacher was not an altar boy. Addicted to cocaine, LSD and crystal meth since the age of 13, he has been involved in bank robberies and violent robberies, going so far as to cut a taxi driver's hand with a knife to steal his vehicle.
His successive convictions for assault, possession of weapons, disguise for criminal purposes and even
escape have earned him more than 14 years in prison.
Somewhere between 2018 and 2019, after more than 10 years of incarceration, Mehlenbacher began to identify as a woman. "Steven" then officially became "Samantha" in the eyes of the Correctional Service of Canada. Prison authorities transferred her to Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, Ontario.
There, in a supervised housing unit, fellow inmates quickly accused her of lying about her gender identity to have sex with women, court documents seen by La Presse reveal.
One of them, a woman convicted of manslaughter, has formally filed a complaint. Following an investigation by Waterloo police, charges of sexual assault and criminal harassment were laid against Mehlenbacher. On June 27, under an agreement with the Crown, the transgender inmate pleaded guilty to harassment, and the count of sexual assault was dropped, in exchange for a four-month sentence she served in part in a halfway house in downtown Montreal.
Samantha Mehlenbacher vigorously disputed the sexual assault charges.
According to a 2020 Parole Board evaluation report, the inveterate criminal created "a trail of victims, many of whom were terrorized" by her behavior and "repeated violations of conditions" throughout her prison journey.
Classified in their "preferred type of establishment"Formalized last May, the policy that allows for this type of transfer, called Commissioner's Directive 100 — Gender-Diverse Offenders, stems directly from Bill C-16, which since 2017 has prohibited discrimination against transgender or two-spirit people.
It specifies that male or female inmates may be placed in their "preferred type of facility," based on what "best matches their gender identity or expression," "regardless of their sex (i.e., anatomy) or gender/sex marker in identification documents," the directive states.
Whether or not the offender has initiated a gender reassignment intervention or hormone therapy treatment is irrelevant.
The process does not provide for any review of the sincerity of his claims.
The only available refusal criterion is the existence of "overriding health or safety concerns"
that cannot be resolved through a reassessment of its security clearance.
"Each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to respect the dignity and rights of the offender concerned and to ensure the safety of all offenders," Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)
spokesperson Marie-Pier Lécuyer said in an email.
In Quebec, although no official directive has been adopted, provincial prisons apply a similar policy, says the Ministry of Public Security.
CSC assures that the beneficiaries of these "accommodations" represent "less than 1% of the inmate population".
But Heather Mason, a former inmate who is fighting hard to stop these transfers of transgender inmates, argues that CSC "is unloading the reality of violence from male to women's prisons" with this policy.
"Women's prisons are typically cottages, with common areas and locked doors. It's more relaxed than men's prisons," says the former inmate.
Samantha Mehlenbacher vigorously disputed the sexual assault charges.
According to a 2020 Parole Board evaluation report, the inveterate criminal created "a trail of victims, many of whom were terrorized" by her behavior and "repeated violations of conditions" throughout her prison journey.
Classified in their "preferred type of establishment"Formalized last May, the policy that allows for this type of transfer, called Commissioner's Directive 100 — Gender-Diverse Offenders, stems directly from Bill C-16, which since 2017 has prohibited discrimination against transgender or two-spirit people.
It specifies that male or female inmates may be placed in their "preferred type of facility," based on what "best matches their gender identity or expression," "regardless of their sex (i.e., anatomy) or gender/sex marker in identification documents," the directive states.
Whether or not the offender has initiated a gender reassignment intervention or hormone therapy treatment is irrelevant.
The process does not provide for any review of the sincerity of his claims.
The only available refusal criterion is the existence of "overriding health or safety concerns"
that cannot be resolved through a reassessment of its security clearance.
"Each application is assessed on a case-by-case basis to ensure that appropriate measures are taken to respect the dignity and rights of the offender concerned and to ensure the safety of all offenders," Correctional Service of Canada (CSC)
spokesperson Marie-Pier Lécuyer said in an email.
In Quebec, although no official directive has been adopted, provincial prisons apply a similar policy, says the Ministry of Public Security.
CSC assures that the beneficiaries of these "accommodations" represent "less than 1% of the inmate population".
But Heather Mason, a former inmate who is fighting hard to stop these transfers of transgender inmates, argues that CSC "is unloading the reality of violence from male to women's prisons" with this policy.
"Women's prisons are typically cottages, with common areas and locked doors. It's more relaxed than men's prisons," says the former inmate.
These men try to soften their pain in a less restrictive environment by pretending to be women, but some also seek to approach women because they are in it for a very long period of time, and they want to have sex.
Heather Mason, former inmate
Based on interviews she has done with several inmates who have been around these transgender prisoners in prison, she says that half are originally men who were incarcerated for crimes of a sexual nature. "This policy puts hundreds of women prisoners, a very large proportion of whom have already been victims of sexual assault, in an even more vulnerable situation," she said.
Parole Board reports seen by La Presse indicate that many of these transgender inmates also have a history of violence and abuse of all kinds, even after being transferred to women's prisons.
Heather Mason, former inmate
Based on interviews she has done with several inmates who have been around these transgender prisoners in prison, she says that half are originally men who were incarcerated for crimes of a sexual nature. "This policy puts hundreds of women prisoners, a very large proportion of whom have already been victims of sexual assault, in an even more vulnerable situation," she said.
Parole Board reports seen by La Presse indicate that many of these transgender inmates also have a history of violence and abuse of all kinds, even after being transferred to women's prisons.
For example, the Joliette Institution for Women in Quebec housed Anngella Valentino, 60, formerly Wayne Bruce Stovka, who spent "the majority of his life incarcerated" for robbery, kidnapping and other violent crimes. While she was at large and already identifying as a woman, Valentino hit the face of one of her victims with an imitation pistol and put the barrel in her mouth.
A Parole Board report notes that she then had "significant" and "repeated" problems while serving her sentence in a women's institution, including "assaultive behaviour and a bullying, intimidating and threatening attitude to other inmates" as well as staff. In particular, Valentino held a siege of a few hours with the guards, during which she refused to cooperate with crisis negotiators.
Matthew Ralf Harks, a serial pedophile convicted of raping three girls aged 4, 5 and 7, who became Madilyn Harks in prison, was also charged with at least one charge of sexual assault by a fellow inmate after she was transferred to the Grand Valley Women's Institution, according to a Parole Board decision. The allegations earned him a solitary confinement stay, but after investigation, the police decided not to lay charges.
Matthew Ralf Harks, a serial pedophile convicted of raping three girls aged 4, 5 and 7, who became Madilyn Harks in prison, was also charged with at least one charge of sexual assault by a fellow inmate after she was transferred to the Grand Valley Women's Institution, according to a Parole Board decision. The allegations earned him a solitary confinement stay, but after investigation, the police decided not to lay charges.
The complainant, a woman with an intellectual disability, was "immediately charged with transphobia," Mason said in a 2021 report to Ottawa's Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.
According to his parole report, Harks has already admitted to having made about sixty victims and is considered at "high risk of sexual recidivism even after [a] sex change operation" and taking hormone therapy since 2015. During a supervised release in a halfway house in 2018, his "sexual comments and derogatory remarks about younger residents made other residents and staff uncomfortable."
Constraints on Administrative SegregationThe Office of the Correctional Investigator, the Ombudsman for Inmates, noted in its 2018-2019 report that the integration of transgender inmates in women's prisons has been the subject of several complaints from inmates and is "a source of operational challenges." "The concern raised is understandable, especially when you consider that most [federal] women have experienced significant trauma and sexual and physical violence in their lifetime," investigator Ivan Zinger writes in a short chapter on the phenomenon.
"In addition, we cannot completely ignore the fact that manipulation is a possible reason why a male inmate might express his desire to live as transgender," adds Investigator Zinger.
Members of the Union of Federal Correctional Officers fear transgender transfers because they feel they are not equipped to deal with them.
Often, the emergency team at a women's facility is made up of women only. However, the physical strength
of a trans person and his size remain the same.
Frédéric Lebeau, President of the Union of Federal Correctional Officers
In contrast, transgender inmates who are incarcerated in prisons that do not match their gender identity are "often very vulnerable ... and may be victims of violence, intimidation, harassment and sexual assault."
"Sometimes they are placed in conditions similar to solitary confinement for their own safety," Zinger's report said.
Could the creation of specific wings for trans people in prisons be a solution? "That would be creating a new form of segregation," said Céleste Trianon, who campaigns for trans rights at the Centre for Combating Gender Oppression,
an independent organization funded by Concordia University students.
The idea of the "trans predator," she argues, is a "legacy of patriarchy" from which society must free itself. "I think it's unrealistic to think that a person changes sex just for the purpose of assaulting women," she says.
The real solution, says Céleste Trianon, would rather be to "degender" society as a whole.
"It starts with schools, then public toilets, and one day it will be prisons."
With the collaboration of Erika Bisaillon, La Presse
SOME FIGURES64Total number of gender-diverse inmates incarcerated in men's prisons
57Number of requests for transgender transfers to federal women's prisons
12Number of transfers approved since 2017
Number of requests for transgender transfers to federal prisons for men
24Total number of gender-diverse inmates held in women's prisons
Source: Correctional Service of Canada
GENDER IDENTITIES: RIGHTS OF FEDERAL INMATES
A way, for some, to blame their "old self"
TRISTAN PÉLOQUINTHE PRESSLa Presse was able to find two cases where detainees convicted of violent crimes blamed their former
identity for the heinous actions they committed.
In mid-August, the Parole Board of Canada refused to grant pre-release conditions to Michel Reeves, a 64-year-old Francophone inmate of Aboriginal origin, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a Montreal businessman with a baseball bat in 1987 and then strangling a fellow inmate in prison with a belt with the help of two accomplices. Reeves allegedly participated in "group masturbation around the victim's body" after the murder in prison, the parole decision said.
The Commission states that Reeves now identifies as Jackie and wants to be transferred to a women's prison. "The most recent psychological risk assessment, completed in April 2022, indicates that you no longer consider yourself to be the same person who committed the offences that led to your sentence," reads the decision of the commissioners, who point out in passing a virtual absence of remorse and "limited introspection towards [his] criminal behavior".
In 2004, Cara-Ann Lindley, a transgender woman from British Columbia who underwent sex reassignment surgery in Montreal, was convicted of strangling and beating her ex-wife with about 20 times from tire iron. His lawyer, who was challenging a five-year sentence imposed for the crime, argued that it was his client's former male personality who was responsible for the attack, in addition to putting the blame on a combination of estrogen and alcohol.
Heather Mason, a former inmate who is on a crusade against the transfer of transgender prisoners to women's prisons, believes that this posture is for some criminals a way to clear customs, but especially to obtain "more lenient sentences from judges".
Alter Justice, an NPO that helps people who are in court and accompanies ex-detainees in their pardon applications, says, however, that it "seems rare for a person to use the gender dysphoria card as a defense in court and win their case, just like [defendants who plead] mental health disorder," says its director, Daniel Poulin-Gallant
Related task: assist with name changeChanging their gender after one or more convictions also allows criminals to officially change their first and last names, and leave with a blank civilian identity upon their release from prison.
The "Commissioner's Directive" governing transfers of transgender inmates even states that it is the task of parole officers to "assist offenders in completing their application for a change of legal name" upon their discharge from the penitentiary.
In the vast majority of parole board reports we consulted for this report, only the new female names of transgender inmates were mentioned.
Change of faceThe case of Jody Matthew Burke, the former Montreal gym coach who now wants to call himself Amber,
also raises the question of a definitive change in appearance.
Claiming to suffer from "gender dysphoria" that he says explains his ultraviolent past, Burke said during his sentencing arguments at the Montreal courthouse that the woman he wants to become after surgery "will have a different face" from his own.
"It's immensely dangerous," Mason said. Some of these people are sex offenders, murderers and extremely violent men. Hiding their true identity is a public safety issue," she says.
According to his parole report, Harks has already admitted to having made about sixty victims and is considered at "high risk of sexual recidivism even after [a] sex change operation" and taking hormone therapy since 2015. During a supervised release in a halfway house in 2018, his "sexual comments and derogatory remarks about younger residents made other residents and staff uncomfortable."
Constraints on Administrative SegregationThe Office of the Correctional Investigator, the Ombudsman for Inmates, noted in its 2018-2019 report that the integration of transgender inmates in women's prisons has been the subject of several complaints from inmates and is "a source of operational challenges." "The concern raised is understandable, especially when you consider that most [federal] women have experienced significant trauma and sexual and physical violence in their lifetime," investigator Ivan Zinger writes in a short chapter on the phenomenon.
"In addition, we cannot completely ignore the fact that manipulation is a possible reason why a male inmate might express his desire to live as transgender," adds Investigator Zinger.
Members of the Union of Federal Correctional Officers fear transgender transfers because they feel they are not equipped to deal with them.
Often, the emergency team at a women's facility is made up of women only. However, the physical strength
of a trans person and his size remain the same.
Frédéric Lebeau, President of the Union of Federal Correctional Officers
In contrast, transgender inmates who are incarcerated in prisons that do not match their gender identity are "often very vulnerable ... and may be victims of violence, intimidation, harassment and sexual assault."
"Sometimes they are placed in conditions similar to solitary confinement for their own safety," Zinger's report said.
Could the creation of specific wings for trans people in prisons be a solution? "That would be creating a new form of segregation," said Céleste Trianon, who campaigns for trans rights at the Centre for Combating Gender Oppression,
an independent organization funded by Concordia University students.
The idea of the "trans predator," she argues, is a "legacy of patriarchy" from which society must free itself. "I think it's unrealistic to think that a person changes sex just for the purpose of assaulting women," she says.
The real solution, says Céleste Trianon, would rather be to "degender" society as a whole.
"It starts with schools, then public toilets, and one day it will be prisons."
With the collaboration of Erika Bisaillon, La Presse
SOME FIGURES64Total number of gender-diverse inmates incarcerated in men's prisons
57Number of requests for transgender transfers to federal women's prisons
12Number of transfers approved since 2017
Number of requests for transgender transfers to federal prisons for men
24Total number of gender-diverse inmates held in women's prisons
Source: Correctional Service of Canada
GENDER IDENTITIES: RIGHTS OF FEDERAL INMATES
- Be called by the name she has chosen and the pronoun she prefers, such as "he", "she" or "they", and M., Mme, or Mx.
- Keep their gender identity confidential or communicate it only to staff who deal directly with their case.
- Request a private washroom and other measures to "ensure safety and privacy."
- Wear clothing and have personal belongings, including breast or penile prostheses, that match their gender identity or expression.
- Request that strip searches and summary searches be conducted by a male or female employee.
A way, for some, to blame their "old self"
TRISTAN PÉLOQUINTHE PRESSLa Presse was able to find two cases where detainees convicted of violent crimes blamed their former
identity for the heinous actions they committed.
In mid-August, the Parole Board of Canada refused to grant pre-release conditions to Michel Reeves, a 64-year-old Francophone inmate of Aboriginal origin, who is serving a life sentence for murdering a Montreal businessman with a baseball bat in 1987 and then strangling a fellow inmate in prison with a belt with the help of two accomplices. Reeves allegedly participated in "group masturbation around the victim's body" after the murder in prison, the parole decision said.
The Commission states that Reeves now identifies as Jackie and wants to be transferred to a women's prison. "The most recent psychological risk assessment, completed in April 2022, indicates that you no longer consider yourself to be the same person who committed the offences that led to your sentence," reads the decision of the commissioners, who point out in passing a virtual absence of remorse and "limited introspection towards [his] criminal behavior".
In 2004, Cara-Ann Lindley, a transgender woman from British Columbia who underwent sex reassignment surgery in Montreal, was convicted of strangling and beating her ex-wife with about 20 times from tire iron. His lawyer, who was challenging a five-year sentence imposed for the crime, argued that it was his client's former male personality who was responsible for the attack, in addition to putting the blame on a combination of estrogen and alcohol.
Heather Mason, a former inmate who is on a crusade against the transfer of transgender prisoners to women's prisons, believes that this posture is for some criminals a way to clear customs, but especially to obtain "more lenient sentences from judges".
Alter Justice, an NPO that helps people who are in court and accompanies ex-detainees in their pardon applications, says, however, that it "seems rare for a person to use the gender dysphoria card as a defense in court and win their case, just like [defendants who plead] mental health disorder," says its director, Daniel Poulin-Gallant
Related task: assist with name changeChanging their gender after one or more convictions also allows criminals to officially change their first and last names, and leave with a blank civilian identity upon their release from prison.
The "Commissioner's Directive" governing transfers of transgender inmates even states that it is the task of parole officers to "assist offenders in completing their application for a change of legal name" upon their discharge from the penitentiary.
In the vast majority of parole board reports we consulted for this report, only the new female names of transgender inmates were mentioned.
Change of faceThe case of Jody Matthew Burke, the former Montreal gym coach who now wants to call himself Amber,
also raises the question of a definitive change in appearance.
Claiming to suffer from "gender dysphoria" that he says explains his ultraviolent past, Burke said during his sentencing arguments at the Montreal courthouse that the woman he wants to become after surgery "will have a different face" from his own.
"It's immensely dangerous," Mason said. Some of these people are sex offenders, murderers and extremely violent men. Hiding their true identity is a public safety issue," she says.
TRISTAN PÉLOQUIN
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Transgender people imprisoned with | women Controversial cohabitation| The Press (lapresse.ca)
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Transgender people imprisoned with | women Controversial cohabitation| The Press (lapresse.ca)
