A transgender prisoner believed to have impregnated two female inmates after being transferred to a women’s prison has been removed from the New Jersey facility.
Demi Minor, 27, is now incarcerated at the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility in Burlington County, a prison for young adult offenders, after previously being housed at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for women.
Garden State is listed as a mixed-custody facility, but New Jersey Department of Corrections spokesperson Dan Sperrazza said that Minor “is currently the only woman prisoner on the site,” NJ.com reported.
Minor objected to the transfer earlier this month in a post on the @freeMsDemi account on Twitter, which is operated by Justice for Demi.
“This week I was moved from a female facility to a male facility, I mean this type of hatred towards who I truly am has to stop, but know this… I will never stop rising above,” reads the July 5 tweet.
Minor began transitioning to female after entering the prison system in 2012 as Demitrius Minor to serve a 30-year sentence for manslaughter and carjacking.
“It is incredibly lonely beginning your gender transition inside of a men’s prison, especially when COVID restrictions prevent you from starting hormones,” Minor said in a pinned tweet on June 1, 2020.
The prison system confirmed in April that two inmates became pregnant earlier this year after the corrections system began transferring male prisoners who identify as female to Edna Mahan under a settlement agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union.
The corrections department said the matter was under investigation, but “the two pregnancies resulted from consensual sexual relationships with another incarcerated person.”
The Justice for Demi website said in April that Minor “began sexual relationships with two women, both of which resulted in the pregnancies which have been reported in the news” while incarcerated at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for women.
Demi sent us this from the SEGREGATED unit in Edna for trans women before she was shipped to male facilities. pic.twitter.com/c6MGMGtsk8
— Justice 4 Demi (@justice4demi) July 5, 2022
In April, the Women’s Liberation Front reported that 27 male-born inmates were being housed at Edna Mahan with no requirement for gender-reassignment surgery along with about 800 female prisoners.
The one-year settlement agreement expired last month, but Mr. Sperrazza said the transgender-housing policy remains in place, although “the department is currently reviewing the policy for housing transgender incarcerated persons with the intention of implementing minor modifications.”
Minor denied being a threat to female inmates, saying “I choose to love,” and citing loose prison security in an interview conducted earlier this year on the JPay app with NJ.com.
“Everyone is having sex at Edna it’s a sad reality, and the fact that a lady spent several nights in my cell unaccounted for goes to show you how unstructured this prison is,” Minor said.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy announced in June 2021 that he plans to close Edna Mahan after an independent report listed multiple violations, including incidents of violent conduct by guards against inmates.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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