Washington State correctional officials, in a rare moment of good sense, have transferred a “transgender” inmate from a women’s prison where he was accused of sexually assaulting his cellmate to a men’s prison.
The Daily Caller reported Tuesday that Christopher Williams, a 35-year-old man serving a 28-year sentence for domestic violence, was transferred on June 20 from the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) to the Airway Heights Corrections Center.
The 6-foot-4-inch Williams was originally incarcerated in a men’s prison. While there, wrote the Daily Caller, he racked up a list of infractions that includes
fighting with another inmate, sexual harassment, possessing sexually explicit materials, stealing food, damaging property and providing false information during an investigation of sexual misconduct.
By March 2019, Williams had apparently “discovered” he was actually a woman. At that time, the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC), only too eager to pander to his delusion (or deception), began referring to him with feminine pronouns, according to a custody-review summary obtained by the Daily Caller.
In November 2019, Williams requested a transfer to a women’s prison. A housing-review committee recommended against it because of his “level of past violence towards women.”
But Williams was persistent. The next month, the committee wrote, “Due to ongoing sexual exploitation in Male Facilities she [Williams] does not feel safe to be housed in Male Facilities and does not feel safe being classified as male.” Williams later invoked the Violence Against Women Act in support of his request. Despite prison employees’ repeated opposition to transferring Williams, he finally got his wish in October 2021, when he was moved to WCCW — and, within two months, committed his first infraction.
A major reason for this seeming disregard for its own employees’ opinions, not to mention the safety of the women at WCCW, was a legal confrontation between the DOC and Disability Rights Washington (DRW), a federally funded activist organization. According to the Daily Caller, in 2017, DRW “began an extensive investigation into the treatment of ‘transgender people with disabilities in DOC.’” Two years later, DRW and DOC entered into negotiations. Then, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, DRW sued the DOC on behalf of several “transgender” inmates. (The DOC eventually settled with DRW, so Washington taxpayers get to pay the group an additional $1.5 million in legal fees plus $300,000 a year while the settlement remains in effect.)
Penned the Daily Caller:
In the midst of these negotiations Washington DOC published its first policy specific to “transgender” inmates in February 2020, which allowed inmates to be transferred to a prison that matches their gender identity — how they feel about their sex — rather than their biology.
A DOC representative told the Daily Caller that, under the department’s “gender-affirming housing” policy, decisions about where to house inmates must consider “objective criteria” including the prisoner’s “gender identity.” Yes, feelings now constitute “objective criteria” in the Evergreen State.
“Each situation is considered on a case-by-case basis,” the DOC representative said, “with a focus on safety both for the incarcerated individual and those who are housed at the facility.”
That would surely come as news to Mozzy Clark, a former WCCW inmate who is suing the DOC after she was forced to share a cell with Williams, during which time he allegedly sexually assaulted her on more than one occasion.
As The New American reported in January, Williams asked to be housed with Clark, whereupon he began making lewd remarks toward her. Then,
Williams moved beyond mere words. He took advantage of the fact that Clark was heavily medicated at night to help her cope with night terrors from having been raped as a child.
“One night, Ms. Clark woke up and saw inmate Williams sitting on the floor next to her bed with his arm under her blanket, rubbing her genitals,” the New York Post quoted Clark’s lawsuit. Clark told National Review she only awakened because a prison guard caught Williams in the act and told him to get back in his own bed. She also said she’d discovered Williams beside her bed on at least three other occasions. Once [she] woke up to find her shirt had been pulled up above her breasts.
After numerous complaints from Clark, Williams was removed from her cell. But he continued to harass her, stare at her in the showers, and even threaten her with violence if she complained about him anymore, she claimed.
Clark’s attorneys told Fox News prison officials “threatened Clark by telling her going public with her claims would be considered a ‘hate crime.’”
Explaining her decision to sue, Clark said:
My experience at WCCW was a nightmare. I lived in constant fear, knowing that those who were supposed to protect me not only ignored my pleas for help but enabled my abuser. This cannot continue to happen to others.
For now, at least, no one at WCCW will have to fear Williams. Although the DOC declined comment on Williams’ transfer, citing privacy reasons, they told the Daily Caller inmates “are often transferred to other facilities, sometimes temporarily, for a variety of reasons like medical treatment, programming needs, or security reasons.”
Williams’ gender continues to be listed as female on the DOC’s website, so it’s possible he’ll end up in a women’s prison again.
Clark’s case, meanwhile, is set to go to trial in October 2026.