#codhem

ByNuria Muíña García. August 19, 2023

A female inmate at Mexico’s Chalco Penitentiary and Social Reintegration Center has reported that she was sexually assaulted by a trans-identified male who had been placed in her cell. The male inmate had a history of sexual violence, and threatened to harm the victim’s children if she spoke out about what happened to her.

According to El Capitalino, the assault occurred in July of 2022 after the trans-identified male inmate was transferred into the victim’s quarters. Despite having a history of violent sexual crimes and misconduct, the perpetrator was allowed to move into the women’s area where there was minimal security, with some sections being separated only by fabric curtains.

The Chalco Penitentiary and Social Reintegration Center houses approximately 450 women, and features a daycare room for female inmates with young children.

Maribel Cervantes Guerrero, head of the Secretariat of Security, touring the prison’s daycare in 2019. Photo Credit: Quadratin

While the victim had initially been threatened into silence as the trans-identified male had promised to harm her family using contacts he had on the outside, she eventually reported the assault to prison authorities.

CODHEM, the Human Rights Commission of the State of Mexico, launched an investigation and determined that “one of the [incarcerated women] was sexually assaulted by her roommate, who was a trans woman with previous complaints of misconduct and probable sexual harassment.”

CODHEM further revealed that “the aggression was not prevented by the prison authorities,” with the facility administrators having conducted an insufficient assessment of the inmate without follow-up and with no consideration for the possible risks the trans-identified male inmate posed to the women.

But disturbingly, despite affirming that the sexual assault had taken place and that the transgender inmate had been a risk to the women, CODHEM ordered prison staff to attend a “gender perspective” course.

The president of CODHEM, Myrna Araceli García Morón, also recommended the training not only to the Chalco staff, but to the staff of all penitentiary centers in the region.

As reported by El Gráfico, members of the Interdisciplinary University Seminar on Citizen Security at the National Autonomous University of Mexico were in charge of giving the course on human rights and “gender perspective” to eighty prison officials.

The same University was recently embroiled in scandal after trans activists staged a “coup” and took control over one of the largest women’s washrooms on the campus in protest of a lesbian mural being painted nearby. Trans activists vandalized the washroom, painting graffiti that threatened women critical of gender ideology with “rape and death.”

Despite Mexico’s political constitution outlining that prisons must be sex-segregated, the National Human Rights Commission of Mexico has declared that there is no “strict difference between men and women.”

Since news of the assault broke, Mexican media have almost uniformly referred to the assailant as a “woman,” or “trans woman,” using feminine pronouns to refer to the rapist.

Speaking to Reduxx on the disturbing case, Laura Lecuona, the head of WDI Mexico and author of Gender Identity: Lies and Dangers, slammed CODHEM for perpetuating gender self-identification policy in light of the obvious risks it posed.

“A man with a history of sexual violence is serving his sentence in a women’s prison, where he raped and threatened a cellmate, and the state human rights commission thinks that the solution is to give prison employees a little course on ‘gender,'” Lecuona says, questioning: “What will they teach them in this course? Likely that ‘trans women are women.’ The only solution is to recognize that self-declaration of sex involves several dangers for women.”

Lecuona also says gender self-identification policies must be “abandoned” completely in order to protect women.

“Feminists have been warning about this for years. There is still time [for authorities] to rectify and fulfill their obligation to guarantee women a life free of violence.”

The employment of “gender” counselors in cases where women have been involuntarily housed in close quarters with men who declare a transgender identity is an international phenomenon. In July, Reduxx revealed that a man who identifies as transgender presented a speech for a Women’s Empowerment event held at New Jersey’s only correctional facility for women, where he lectured female inmates on the importance of “inclusivity.”