WEST YORKSHIRE, September 10, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – A biologically male rapist who “identifies” as a woman has been accused of sexually assaulting four female inmates shortly after being transferred to an all-female facility.
Stephen Wood is a 52-year-old man and a convicted sex offender and pedophile who now goes by the name “Karen” White. He pled guilty to raping one woman in 2003 and another in 2016. He also adopted the name David Thompson at one point, and is awaiting sentencing for stabbing a neighbor.
The exact nature of Wood’s situation is unclear. He reportedly began “identifying” as “female” in 2014, but some of his friends have claimed to the press that he is merely a drag artist and doesn’t truly have gender dysphoria. Others, however, report that he did seek help from a transgender group in Manchester, which referred him to a “gender identity clinic” in Sheffield.
Wood has not had so-called sex-change surgery, but because he “identifies” as a woman he was remanded to New Hall Prison, a women’s jail. There, the Daily Mail reports, he used the opportunity to sexually assault four actual women. Specifically, Wood allegedly exposed himself to one inmate, put a second inmate’s hand on his breast and made “inappropriate comments about oral sex,” pushed himself “indecently” against a third prisoner, and kissed a fourth on the neck.
Wood has admitted to two of the assaults but denied the others, claiming to suffer from erectile dysfunction and to not be attracted to women.
Following the incidents, Wood was transferred to the men’s facility HM Prison Leeds.
“We apologise sincerely for the mistakes which were made in this case,” a Prison Service spokesman said. “While we work to manage all prisoners, including those who are transgender, sensitively and in line with the law, we are clear that the safety of all prisoners must be our absolute priority.”
“Feminists may believe correctly that ‘women don’t have penises’, but according to the latest figures, there are 125 transgender prisoners in jails in England and Wales,” author Ann Farmer wrote in response to the incident at MercatorNet. “With this sort of encouragement from those in authority, for whom public safety should be a first priority, this problem is not going to go away any time soon.”
“In fact,” she warned, “it is likely to grow, although it is unlikely that many ‘trans men’ (i.e. women who believe they are men) will seek to be trans-ferred to men’s prisons – even if they claim to be rapists.”
Across the world sex-segregated incarceration is one of the many overlooked fronts in the ongoing war over “gender identity.” In the United States, the Trump administration changed the process in May for handling gender-confused inmates so that, while decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis, the “initial determination” is founded on biological sex and that putting men with women (or vice versa) would only be approved in “rare cases.”