California transgender convict pulled from female prison for alleged rape

(The Center Square) - A biologically male, transgender prison inmate in California was transferred from a women’s prison to a men’s prison after being charged with two rape counts against at least one unnamed woman while at the prison, first reported by 4w, a feminist news site. The unnamed woman, who was the alleged rapist’s cellmate, says she was raped by force in the shower, according to Fox News.

Tremaine Carroll, a six foot tall, 220 pound biological male, has been charged with two counts of rape and one count of dissuading a witness from testifying since transferring from a men’s prison to a women’s prison in 2021, when Senate Bill 132 went into effect.

Under Senate Bill 132, prisons must use prisoners’ requested pronouns, house prisoners in facilities of the gender they request, and use officers of a gender requested by prisoners in physical searches of prisoners’ bodies for contraband or other materials.

In an essay for MindSite News, Carroll describes incarceration and not displaying many of the traits popularly commonly associated with gender dysphoria.

“As far as outwardly identifying as anything, I never felt the need. To this day I don’t. My gender identity is mine and mine alone. I’m a natural born athlete. I played sports when I was young. I’m 6 feet, I’m 220 pounds, I am who I am,” wrote Carroll. “I never felt the need to wear lipstick or wear tight clothing or try to change my voice or any of the things that people who are trying to put me in a box have done.”

In a recent interview, one female California prison guard shared her traumatization from being required to conduct a full-body search of a biological male under SB 132. The news of Carroll’s charges and transfer spread further on gender-critical news site Reduxx the same day the Women’s Liberation Front held a press conference for its case against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to overturn SB 132. Legal intervention against the WoLF case included Carroll as a plaintiff with support from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In testimony collected by the ACLU, Carroll said, “I know what it feels like to live in fear and to carry the weight of the past abuse by men. But I am not a threat.”

Less than a year later, Carroll was charged with rape and transferred back to men’s prison. According to the CDCR, 33.8% of the 287 California individuals housed in male facilities requesting transfers to female facilities are registered sex offenders, while 25.8% were convicted of a sex offense.

Carroll has been incarcerated since 1999 under California’s three strikes law that sentences individuals found guilty of three or more serious or violent crimes for 25 years to life. Carroll’s charges include three counts of kidnapping for ransom, two counts of robbery, three counts of oral copulation in concert by force, robbery, attempted carjacking, grand theft, possession of a concealed firearm, and possession of a weapon by a prisoner. Carroll sought resentencing but was denied, with a court finding in 2015 that “resentencing Carroll would present an unreasonable risk of danger to public safety.”

The ACLU did not respond to request for comment by time of publication.