FORT WORTH, Texas — More female inmates joined a federal lawsuit to separate transgender inmates from female inmates at a Texas special needs women’s prison, lodging additional allegations of sexual harassment against the biological men housed with them.
After two female detainees brought forth sexual abuse claims in a civil rights case, a November court order instructed Federal Medical Center-Carswell, a women’s prison in Fort Worth housing women with medical and mental health conditions, to either “reassign [the] male inmates away” from where the plaintiffs reside or place the transgender inmates in a “secure, segregated” block within FMC Carswell.
Now, several other women at FMC Carswell have alleged that the warden simply moved the men, many of whom are still fully intact, into their housing units following the separation order.
Three female inmates, Jasmine Meabon, 27; Jessica Clemencio Morais, 23; and Keisha Williams, 29, asked via a motion to intervene to be included in the lawsuit so that they, too, can receive protection under the Nov. 19 temporary restraining order. As written, the order of protection currently only covers plaintiffs named in the lawsuit.
“Instead of solving the problem, he chose to injure different women,” the plaintiff attorneys said of Warden Tyal Rule in the Dec. 17 intervention motion.
According to exhibits filed in support of the motion, which assert that the women are at a high risk of sexual assault while housed with the men, some of the transgender inmates incarcerated at FMC Carswell were convicted of violent sex crimes against women and young children.
Among the transgender inmates cited in the complaint’s brief is Michael D. Reed, who reportedly raped a 75-year-old woman and pleaded guilty to kidnapping plus indecent acts with a child. Serial child rapist July Justine Shelby, born William McClain, is imprisoned for distributing child pornography of babies being sexually abused. McClain’s past victims include a 9-year-old boy.
Rafael Mercado Berrios, a convicted sex offender, has been placed in hospital segregation because of his elevated testosterone levels, the brief alleged. Mercado Berrios is allegedly known to have sex with female inmates in the communal showers.
Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater, a Reagan appointee presiding over the FMC Carswell case, allowed two more female inmates to join as co-plaintiffs on Friday.
Brenda Leigh Kirk, 52, and Elizabeth Ann Hardin, 68, both now plaintiffs, said that they have seen the male inmates peeking into the showers at FMC Carswell and standing at the bathroom sinks with “visible erections.”
According to their complaint, the women at FMC Carswell, including Kirk and Hardin, have had to dress inside the shower stalls or toilet areas, rather than out in the open changing space, “to protect an ounce of their privacy from the male gaze.”
“Intervenor-Plaintiffs, and other female inmates at FMC Carswell, are compelled to shower, undress, sleep, and use toilets in the presence of male inmates—often in open, communal spaces that offer no meaningful visual barrier… ” the complainants said. “Female inmates are exposed to male genitalia, voyeurism, sexualized harassment, and the constant fear of sexual assault.”
If Meabon, Morais, and Williams can be added to the suit as well, they would bring the total number of co-plaintiffs to seven.
“There is a reason the attorneys are adding additional plaintiffs,” lead plaintiff Rhonda Fleming, 60, told the Washington Examiner. “We want the DOJ to order the warden to place all the men in one area of the prison, so they don’t have access to any women’s intimate spaces.”
The female inmates in Fleming v. Warren T. Rule have waited a long time to see their situation taken seriously, said Elspeth Cypher, a retired Massachusetts Supreme Court judge serving as secretary of the Women’s Liberation Front, a women’s rights advocacy organization.
“It is wonderful to see them succeed, and it is encouraging for women in and outside of court to finally have their concerns recognized,” Cypher told the Washington Examiner. “When women come together to protect their sex-based rights, they can move mountains.”
Cypher noted that female inmates are forced to share intimate spaces with men all over the country in state and federal prisons.
“I hope more women will come forward and seek relief in the courts,” she said.
Government attorneys representing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which oversees FMC Carswell, requested that the court prevent more plaintiffs from joining Fleming’s case on procedural grounds, calling the motions to intervene “untimely” and saying they should have been entered into the record “much earlier.”
Fitzwater held an evidentiary hearing on Thursday to determine whether the lead plaintiffs exhausted all administrative remedies before filing the original lawsuit.
The temporary restraining order was recently renewed as the proceedings related to the exhaustion matter play out.
JUDGE BLOCKS FEDERAL PRISON SYSTEM FROM RELOCATING TRANSGENDER INMATES
Nineteen transgender inmates, all biological men, anonymously sued the Justice Department to prevent the Trump administration from transferring them back to men’s prisons pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order on gender, which mandated that federal detention facilities be segregated by biological sex.
A preliminary injunction was eventually granted in Jane Doe v. Bondi, temporarily blocking Trump’s directive pending litigation. However, it does not bar facilities from removing biological men from cells, housing quarters, and communal spaces shared with female inmates inside women’s prisons.