Cruel & Unusual Punishment: As Trans-Identifying Men Enter Women’s Prisons, a Former Inmate Pleas for Help
Independent Women’s Forum is pleased to announce that Amie Ichikawa, a former California inmate who is now Executive Director of wiiw—Woman II Woman—a nonprofit whose goal is to help incarcerated women, is the latest entry in our popular series of Champion Women profiles.
Her profile is being released in conjunction with IWF’s new docu-series, Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons.
Amie Ichikawa, 42, has become the voice of incarcerated women who are being forced against their will to live with male prisoners. California’s “Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act”—Senate Bill 132—was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2021.
She is now free after serving nearly five years at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, and said that some male prisoners claim non-male identities because female prisons are, as a general rule, less violent than men’s prisons. But they appear to be making women’s prisons more violent.
“A neo-Nazi white supremacist gang member from the men’s prison showed up and was using the phone in the day room. He was yelling and telling his friends to ‘get over here, it’s a gold mine,’” Amie tells IWF, “I got several phone calls that day from women who were just terrified."
“This isn’t living when you’re in a constant state of hypervigilance and you never really rest. What is this? It’s dying,” Amie said. “They’re living dead people. Nobody can heal or rehabilitate under these circumstances. Not the men, not the women. Nobody. This is not benefiting anyone except predators with predatory intentions,” she insisted.
Amie had a difficult time enlisting support for incarcerated women. The ACLU and other liberal stalwarts are on the other side. California politicians she contacted expressed their support for men in the women’s prison.
Help didn’t arrive until U.K. activist Kellie-Jay Keen—Posie Parker—introduced Amie to a group called Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF). Finally, someone was willing to listen. In November of 2021, WoLF filed a civil rights lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on behalf of Woman II Woman and four incarcerated women. WoLF is asking that SB 132 be overturned and declared unconstitutional.
We believe that you will be impressed by Amie's story and her drive to help other women who experience incarceration.
