Two women incarcerated in an all-women's prison in New Jersey are pregnant after they had sex with a transgender inmate, reports NJ.com.
There are more than 800 prisoners, including 27 transgender women, housed at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women. The women became pregnant after engaging in "consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person," Dan Sperrazza, the Department of Corrections' external affairs executive director, told the news outlet.
It is not clear whether the women had sex with the same transgender inmate or with different transgender inmates.
New Jersey in 2021 made it customary for prisoners who identify as transgender, intersex or nonbinary to be assigned a prison stay in line with their gender identity — not with the sex they were assigned at birth — because of a lawsuit filed in 2019 by a transgender woman who said she was forced to live in a men's prison for 1½ years.
Connecticut and California require transgender inmates to be assigned prisons based on their gender identity as well.
New Jersey has grappled with reports of widespread abuses and systemic failures at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women near Clinton.
Twenty officers there received major discipline in 2021, according to an annual report from the Office of the Attorney General; 16 were fired on charges ranging from falsifying reports to mistreatment of inmates to excessive absenteeism and facilitating gambling with inmates while 12 were fired for being arrested and criminally charged after they mistreated an inmate and falsified a report.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy last year announced plans to shutter the facility.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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