Trans women prisoners in CA file to intervene in anti-trans lawsuit
ebar.comFour trans women currently incarcerated in California prisons have filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit that, if successful, would undermine their right to serve out their prison terms in women's prisons.
In a separate, unrelated action, one of the original plaintiffs, Women II Women, has petitioned to be dismissed from the case.That lawsuit, filed November 17, 2021 by four other women, seeks for the courts to declare Senate Bill 132 — authored by gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) — unconstitutional under both the state and federal constitutions.
A motion to intervene petitions the court to allow someone not named as a party to an action to become a party.The motion, filed May 9 in United States District Court for the Eastern District of California in Fresno, would, if allowed, permit the four transgender women — Katie Brown, Kelli Blackwell, Tremayne Carroll, and Jennifer Rose — to participate in the lawsuit because they "have direct interests in defeating plaintiffs' challenge to SB 132, and the court's resolution of that challenge will directly affect the proposed individual intervenors' personal safety and their protected rights," the motion states."Allowing the proposed intervenors to become parties to this case is the only way for the court to ensure that those who have the most at stake in this litigation — the [transgender and intersex] people whose safety and dignity SB 132 seeks to protect — are fully represented," the motion continues. "And it is the court's best opportunity to understand fully the perspectives of incarcerated TGI people in deciding questions that are matters of life and death for them.""If these plaintiffs get what they want, I'll be sent back to a men's prison, where I.
