Mick Hartley

We've heard a lot over the past year about transwomen in women's prisons. See A year in the Gender Wars at The Critic by Jay Elle (of the Glinner Update) for some examples.

Here's the latest:

A vicious convicted killer has won transfer to an Illinois women’s prison with the aide of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). That prison for female offenders was the site of scandal last year after it was revealed that another male inmate placed there was being investigated for the violent rape of his female cellmate.

[The ACLU, remember, has been largely taken over by gender activists, with trans man Chase Strangio now a leading light.]

Diego Melendez, a man who is identifying as a woman named Marilyn Melendez, moved a federal court with testimony that it is “humiliating” for a woman to be forced to be imprisoned with men. “You know, you have me surrounded by men, I have to go to yard with men, I have to be surrounded by men, go to eat with men, I have to go to counseling with men. I am being subject to be around them 24/7, even if I am in a cell by myself,” Mr Melendez testified before the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois while housed in Pontiac Correctional Center, a men’s prison.

“I’m not male…no woman should be forced to be around a man in prison.”

Oh the irony. Melendez is, of course, a man, campaigning to be housed in a women's prison.

Mr Melendez, who “took estrogen and a testosterone blocker in my pre-teen years,” first entered the criminal justice system at age 14. The repeat criminal wrote in his declaration to the United States District Court that “not having a bra is linked to back strain, depression, and suicidal thoughts.”

His pleas to the court came as part of a federal class action lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Illinois in 2019 on behalf of six male inmates who indicated that they identify as women and wanted the Illinois Department of Corrections to provide them “evaluation or treatment for gender dysphoria.”

Nancy J. Rosenstengel, Chief United States District Judge for the Southern District of Illinois ruled in December 2019:

• • prison employees must be trained on the handling of transgender inmates;
  • prisons may no longer automatically assign inmates to prisons based on biological sex indicators, including genitalia or physical size and appearance;
  • strip searches must be conducted by corrections officers who are members of the sex an inmate perceives himself to be.

The testimony of the 28-year-old, who is serving a 27-year sentence for the crimes of Murder With Intent to Kill / Injure and Aggravated Battery with Firearm / Person, helped sway the judge’s decision.

Another complainant who influenced the ruling is Sora Kuykendall, who testified that he is unable to receive visits due to his unwillingness to be searched by male guards. Mr Kuykendall, who identifies as a woman, was named Jordan when he stabbed to death his ex-girlfriend, a high school teen. 

A query of the Illinois Department of Corrections Database shows that Mr Melendez was transferred into the custody of Logan Correctional Center, a multi-level security women’s prison, in late 2021. Mr Kuykendall has been moved to the same facility.

Represented by the same class action lawsuit against Illinois was Janiah Monroe, previously known as Andre Patterson, who with his bare hands strangled to death his male cellmate while awaiting trial for the shooting of two outside a barber shop. Like Mr Melendez and Mr Kuykendall, Mr Monroe was moved to Logan Correctional Center. He is under investigation for raping a female cellmate the day he was placed in the women’s prison.

Registered sex offender Lydia Helena Vision, who still used the name Eric Padilla when convicted of the racially-motivated attempted murder of a black man, was also part of the class action lawsuit. Like Mr Melendez and Mr Kuykendall, he has been secretly relocated to Logan.

All violent predatory men: all, it seems, now transferred to a woman's prison.

When it comes to the guilt or innocence of these men, evidence is called for, decisions are made on the basis of facts, and the pleas of the accused carry no weight. With their placement in a woman's jail, though, evidence is not required, and reality  – the nature of their genitalia etc. – is of no account. All that matters are the feelings of the offenders. Such is the power of gender ideology. 

Happy days in Illinois…