The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that it has launched an investigation into two California women's prisons to determine if they unconstitutionally provided housing and preferential treatment to "biological male prisoners."

In a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon — who heads the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — said investigators will look into "widely reported allegations of deprivation of female prisoners' rights" at the Central California Women's Facility in Madera County and the California Institution for Women in San Bernardino County.

The Justice Department said in a news release that there have been allegations "of sexual assaults, rape, voyeurism and a pervasive climate of sexual intimidation due to the presence of males in the women's prison."

Newsom's office referred The Times to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A spokesperson for the agency said it is "committed to providing a safe, humane, respectful and rehabilitative environment for all incarcerated people."

The Department of Justice also notified Maine Gov. Janet Mills of an investigation into allegations that the state "has allowed a biological male inmate to remain housed with women despite complaints that the male inmate has assaulted or harassed several female inmates."

Dhillon said in a video posted on X that the investigations are part of a new project called the "single-sex prisons initiative" to look for potential civil rights violations in which female inmates are forced "to be in the same rooms with men who are posing as women to get access to the female prisons."

"In California there are reports of many dozen such men housed in women's prisons which of course is exposing these women to sexual assault and other forms of violence and harassment that, if true, are extremely troubling and could violate the civil rights of these women," Dhillon said.

In 2020, Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 132, which gives transgender, nonbinary and intersex inmates at state prisons the right to be housed at either men's or women's facilities. Opponents of the law sued the following year, alleging that it was unconstitutional and created an unsafe environment for women in female facilities, with some plaintiffs claiming they were assaulted.

At the time, LGBTQ+ advocates slammed the suit as baseless and damaging.

"The way they wrote (the complaint) is saying that trans women are men and they are putting men in women's prisons, which is completely false," Bamby Salcedo, president and chief executive of the TransLatin@Coalition, which cosponsored SB 132, previously told The Times. "They're making a claim that is not accurate and not respectful towards trans women specifically."

In an interview with the Times Thursday, Salcedo said that while there may be instances in which people have abused the law, she stressed "it is the responsibility of the CDCR to protect people who are incarcerated."

"They should be able to not just follow the law, but also to be able to screen people appropriately," Salcedo said.

Salcedo said she was not surprised to hear about the new Justice Department investigation, calling it "an effort for this administration to continue to deny opportunities and access to trans people in our society."

The Women's Liberation Front, which brought the lawsuit, announced this week that a federal court had dismissed the case but that they planned to appeal. In an emailed statement, Elspeth Cypher, Women's Liberation Front board president, called the Justice Department investigation "welcome and long overdue."

"I hope that this investigation provides the women in prison with some hope that finally someone is listening," Cypher said.

Under the bill enacted in 2021, 1,028 inmates housed at male prisons have requested to be moved to female facilities, according to data as of March 4. The department had granted 47 requests and denied 132. Another 140 applicants "changed their minds," according to the department.

State officials said that 84 inmates sought to be transferred into men's facilities from women's prisons. Of those, seven were approved.

According to the corrections department, 2,405 inmates identify as nonbinary, intersex or transgender. Those populations are said to experience excessive violence in prison. A 2007 UC Irvine study that included interviews with 39 transgender inmates found that the rate of sexual assault is 13 times higher for transgender people, with 59% of those surveyed reporting experiencing such encounters.

The Justice Department said Thursday that its investigation was just getting underway and that it "has not reached any conclusions regarding allegations in these matters."

"I'm very determined to ensure that no woman who's incarcerated in the United States is subject to potential rape, sexual assault or other violations of her civil rights as a condition of incarceration to satisfy some woke ideology by the state," Dhillon said. "If these states are violating these rights and they don't stop, we will make them through litigation."

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