Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a press release announcing an investigation into gender self-identification policies in women’s prisons. The decision comes against the backdrop of mounting allegations of “rape, voyeurism, and a pervasive climate of sexual intimidation” in states where male inmates are housed according to their self-declared “gender identity.” Under the authority of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the Justice Department will determine whether facilities in California and Maine have exposed incarcerated women to “unconstitutional risks of harm from male inmates.”
Massachusetts should be the next jurisdiction on the list. Just west of Boston, the state’s MCI–Framingham facility houses at least 11 trans-identified men, including serial rapists, wife-murderers, and child molesters, whose presence imposes degrading and dangerous conditions on female inmates. (MCI–Framingham did not return a request for comment for this article.)
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Charles Horton, a level-three sex offender, was sentenced in 2000 to one year of house arrest for raping a minor. In 2019, he was convicted of repeatedly kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old at gunpoint. He is now serving a 25- to 35-year sentence at MCI–Framingham as “Charlise.”
Wayne “Veronica” Raymond, classified as a “sexually dangerous person,” spent 24 years at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for sex offenders and was denied parole six times for failing to demonstrate rehabilitative progress. Records describe a manipulative personality and persistent “deviant fantasies,” noting that he has “only recently begun admitting to [his] sexually abusive behaviors.”
Kenneth Hunt, now “Katheena Soneeya,” was convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering two women, including his own cousin, whom he raped with a broom handle and stabbed more than 40 times. Women incarcerated with Hunt describe him as a “pervert”; multiple inmates have accused him of sexual assault and harassment in statements they provided us.
Female prisoners are forced to share intimate spaces, including communal showers, with these men—only a few of the predatory offenders transferred to MCI–Framingham under the 2018 Criminal Justice Reform Act, which does not require even a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
Inmates are not the only ones affected. Female correctional officers are required to strip-search male offenders who request female staff—an accommodation granted to all men housed at the facility, according to internal Massachusetts Department of Correction (MADOC) documents.
MADOC has denied exemption requests from officers who have been victimized by sexual assault and with histories of documented PTSD, forcing them to comply or risk their jobs. Danielle Laurenti alleged she was warned that she could be held in contempt of court after refusing a direct order to strip-search a male inmate. In July 2025, she told the Independent Women’s Forum that she endures the searches by pinching the inside of her arm to keep from crying. “These men . . . they enjoy it,” she said. “A lot of them have crimes against women. They get off on being naked in front of us. They know what they’re doing.”
Efforts to reform gender self-identification policies have focused on barring men convicted of sexual offenses from women’s prisons. But prior convictions don’t reliably predict who will pose a threat to female inmates.
James “Jennaya” Bennett-Werra is serving time for crimes ranging from attempted bank robbery to vehicular homicide. Though not sexually motivated, he has accumulated multiple Prison Rape Elimination Act violations at MCI–Framingham. One inmate, granted anonymity because she fears retaliation, alleges that Bennet-Werra assaulted her in November 2025 in the Secure Adjustment Unit. He had previously been placed there after earlier allegations of sexual misconduct.
The only way to ensure the safety of incarcerated women is to maintain the sex-based placement standards that prisons have relied on for decades. But that principle matters only if female prisoners matter. In Massachusetts, state officials have signaled their indifference to conditions at MCI–Framingham, detailed by one of us in The Hill, including Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) noncompliance and allegations of cover-ups and retaliation against inmates who report abuse by trans-identified males.
Even institutions established to “provide a . . . voice for women and girls” are now rebuking those who speak up. At an October 2025 public hearing, one of us raised concerns about male inmates at MCI–Framingham before the Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women. Chairwoman Mary-dith Tuitt promised to “research that,” saying that the commission was unaware that any men had been transferred to the facility.
Five months later, several more women testified before MCSW, warning that female inmates “are literally trapped” with dangerous male prisoners. Tuitt again said that the commission was unaware and would look into it “next year.” She also called their testimony “phobic,” “threatening,” inhumane, and unworthy of the commission’s support. Vice Chair Christine Monska echoed the sentiment, affirming that “transwomen are women and should have equal access to human rights.” Giselle Byrd—appointed to MCSW by Governor Maura Healey and described as its “first Black trans woman”—compared the testimony with “the oppressive South that my grandparents survived.”
Judith Schiavone, who spoke at the hearing in support of single-sex spaces, described the commission’s response as “essentially being told to ‘shut up.’” She later wrote to the executive director requesting an apology.
MCSW has not publicly responded to Schiavone’s letter or addressed the commissioners’ conduct, and did not respond to a request for comment by press time. Video footage—typically posted within days—has not been made available. The commission has repeatedly delayed or withheld recordings of testimony on male inmates at MCI–Framingham: footage from the October 2025 hearing did not appear for several months and, when it was finally released, was not posted to MCSW’s official channel.
While the commission remains cold to the plight of women at MCI–Framingham, it has rallied against a “campaign of hateful anti-trans legislation,” committing to “support the trans community . . . in bringing awareness, stopping the violence intimated against them, and codifying their human rights as undisputed law.”
The Justice Department should bring its investigation to Massachusetts. Those in power clearly have little incentive to self-correct. In a healthy political system, competing parties must produce policies that their constituents value, knowing voters may take their support elsewhere if officials fail to deliver. That system breaks down in a state like Massachusetts, where the monopolistic dominance of single-party leadership undermines accountability.
While state officials focus on other priorities—declaring Massachusetts a sanctuary for “gender-affirming care,” funding legal defense programs for illegal immigrants, and defending “the trans community” against the “fascist” Trump administration—women at MCI–Framingham are being subjected to sexual abuse by men who have exploited a loophole opened by reckless progressive reforms. If the DOJ does not investigate MCI–Framingham for constitutional violations, who will?