EXCLUSIVE: The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) revealed the trailer and details about its new documentary series exposing the reality of housing biological males who identify as transgender with female prisoners to Fox News Digital Wednesday.
The series, titled "Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Women's Prisons," will consist of multi-episode interviews with various insiders, prison guards and female inmates on the impact of forcing biological women to share facilities with transgender women. Each episode will be approximately five to ten minutes long and available for free on IWF's YouTube account.
IWF director of storytelling Kelsey Bolar explained that the project was born out of a "desire to take a stance in this fight and be a voice for current and former female inmates who, sadly, don't have a voice."
"IWF has taken a stand in defense of women and girls and female spaces. Our investment in the area of women's prisons is really a natural continuation of our work to protect girls and women and women's spaces. It's unfortunate that up until now, no other women's groups have been willing to be a voice for female inmates, and in some cases, they have actively worked against them by lobbying to put men in women's prisons in the name of tolerance and inclusion," Bolar told Fox News Digital.
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She added, "Once you hear these stories, I think it becomes pretty clear that there's nothing tolerant or inclusive about these policies. In fact, they are actively discriminating against women."
One of the stories includes Woman II Woman founder Amie Ichikawa, who was previously incarcerated for five years at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. While she served her sentence, the facility received convicted rapist Richard Masbruch, who identified as a trans woman and went by the name "Sherri," in a prison transfer.
"It was really a big blow to my mental health, my stability. I wasn't on the same yard or in the same cell as this individual, but just knowing how little concern and how much disdain that the state had for the whole female population was debilitating. People on the outside thought that we were crazy, that we were lying," Ichikawa told Fox News Digital.
"That feeling doesn't really leave you, knowing that you are in an institution that you cannot leave from and you have that little control over even what's in your head is very oppressive," she emphasized.
Bolar, who co-produced the series with Andrea Mew, said the first episode will feature a former female prisoner who was housed in the same cell as a transgender prisoner.
"I'll tell you from a policy perspective, I thought I knew this, but you don't realize these women are climbing up to their top bunk every night with a male sitting below them in their nightgown. It's little details like that you don't even think about until you really do give these women a platform and opportunity to share their story," Bolar said.
Both women spoke about the disappointment they felt at the lack of support from other women’s organizations and the mainstream media.
"It’s been a really rough couple of years hitting wall after wall, even among my own peers, many of whom are running organizations in the state of California that are in the social justice arena who did at one point advocate for women. The population inside [prisons] feels very abandoned," Ichikawa said.
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Bolar added, "Not only did all these women's groups or groups that typically advocate in favor of improving the lives of inmates turn their backs on Aime and her attempt to shed light on this issue, but the media coverage has been completely biased."
She continued, "If you look around at media coverage, it's only from the perspectives of the very few transgender identified inmates. Who's going to ask the female inmates how they feel about these policies and how they've been impacted by being forced to share extremely close quarters with biological men?"
Bolar noted that many current and former inmates were unwilling to speak about the policies out of "fears of retribution" in losing parole opportunities or even violence.
More unfortunately, Ichikawa noted that up to 92% of female prisoners have experienced abuse in their lives and could potentially face sharing facilities with biologically male sexual offenders.
"92% of incarcerated women in California have been battered or beaten or are subject to some form of sexual abuse. They're now forcibly housed with intact male inmates who 33.8% are registered sex offenders. So, to place women in a situation that's very similar to their initial trauma, many of which led them to their incarceration, is cruel and unusual. And it has caused a lot of complex PTSD symptoms that start up developing in the entire population," she said.
Ichikawa continued, "Women's self-worth is depleting on a daily basis just knowing that this is what their life looks like now. It's something every day that’s the harsh reminder that they simply don't matter and that nobody cares. And no matter how loud they scream or who they reach out to, there is no relief. So that is definitely what we're aiming to accomplish with this. They need immediate relief."
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IWF plans to drop the first episode next week with a total of five episodes in the works and a potential for more as they gather more interviews.
"We kind of feel that we're invested in this issue, and as many stories as it takes for people to listen, we will be telling them. We've committed to showing a diversity of voices so people can understand the full range of implications," Bolar said.
