Massachusetts correctional officers and their union stood with protesters at MCI Framingham. They see the consequences of housing intact male inmates—many convicted of sexual violence
Massachusetts correctional officers and their union stood with protesters at MCI Framingham. They see the consequences of housing intact male inmates—many convicted of sexual violence—with women every day. Governor Healey and Democratic leaders remain silent.
My speech at the MCI Framingham Protest last Friday, Oct. 9, 2026.
Who Protects the Women Behind Prison Walls?
By Bronwyn Sims, New Hampshire State Chapter Leader, Independent Women’s Network
A woman does not lose her right to safety, privacy, or dignity when the state locks her up. She remains entitled to protection from violence and sexual abuse. When Massachusetts takes custody of her, it assumes responsibility for that protection. Under Governor Maura Healey and the policies her administration continues to enforce, that responsibility is being abandoned.
On October 9, 2026, women from New England Women’s Solidarity, Women’s Declaration International USA, Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender, Massachusetts Women for Sex-Based Rights, the Women’s Liberation Front, and others gathered outside MCI Framingham—the state’s only prison for women.
I spoke at the protest as the New Hampshire State Chapter Leader of Independent Women’s Network. Massachusetts Department of Correction correctional officers and the union at MCI Framingham stood with us in support. These officers see the consequences of this policy every day: intact male inmates, many with histories of sexual violence, sharing sleeping quarters, showers, and cells with women. No Massachusetts legislators of either party accepted the invitation to attend.
The Department of Correction has refused to tell the Boston Herald how many biological males are housed there. Advocacy groups, drawing on public records, report at least 18. Female inmates have described the facility as a haven for sexual predators who claim a female identity. Nearly all remain sexually intact. They are larger and stronger.
Women report threats, harassment, and sexual assaults. The National Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center has found that 86 percent of incarcerated women are survivors of sexual violence. Forcing them to undress and shower with males risks re-traumatizing them. This is not abstract policy. It is the daily reality created by Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 127, Section 32A—and it is the reality the officers and their union confront on every shift.
That 2018 law—enacted under a prior administration but defended and implemented under Healey—allows inmates to be housed according to stated gender identity rather than biological sex, with or without any diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Placement is presumed to follow the inmate’s request unless officials certify in writing that it creates health, safety, or security problems.
In practice, the exception is rarely invoked against the interests of the male inmate. Female guards have been required to perform intimate strip searches on intact males. Nine from Framingham filed a grievance in 2023 arguing that this violated the department’s own sexual harassment policy; an arbiter ruled against them. One officer said the searches reopened the trauma of her own prior sexual assault. Officers who joined the protest know these conditions firsthand.
The men housed at Framingham are not abstractions. Kenneth Hunt, later known as Katheena Nevia Soneeya, was convicted of raping, torturing, and murdering two women and sentenced to life without parole. After years of litigation he was transferred to the women’s prison following a 2024 federal ruling. Charles “Charlese” Horton abducted and raped a 14-year-old at gunpoint; he is a Level 3 sex offender serving a long sentence.
Wayne “Veronica” Raymond is serving life for raping children and was denied parole multiple times as incompatible with the welfare of society. Justin “Taylor” Shine bound and assaulted a six-year-old girl. These are public records. Female inmates say the men remain sexually intact and that they live in constant fear. The officers who stood outside the walls that day have a closer view of the consequences than any politician.
Federal data obtained by Keep Prisons Single-Sex showed that more than 51 percent of male inmates in the federal system who identified as women were serving time for sexual offenses, compared with 13.5 percent of the overall inmate population. In other states, men housed in women’s prisons have been charged with rape; some female inmates have become pregnant. Massachusetts legislators who passed and sustain this framework reserved their concern for the perceived risk to gender-nonconforming men in men’s prisons. Other states have addressed that risk with separate vulnerable-inmate units inside male facilities. It was never necessary to sacrifice the safety and dignity of female inmates.
The history of women’s prisons is short and hard-won. The first was established in Indiana through the advocacy of Quaker women who had seen women raped and controlled when housed with men. The broader movement grew from the experiences of British suffragettes and American suffragists imprisoned for demanding the vote and basic legal rights. They too encountered conditions created by prisons built by and for men. Separate facilities for women have existed for little more than a century.
The documentary Defending Our Lives records the stories of the Framingham Eight—women imprisoned at MCI Framingham for killing abusive spouses or partners. Seven later received commutations. Their experiences are historical context, not evidence of present-day placement incidents. They are a reminder that many women who enter prison already carry histories of male violence and that the state that confines them has a heightened duty of care.
Healey’s administration has advanced a $360 million renovation plan for Framingham while the underlying policy remains in place. The Massachusetts Commission on the Status of Women has heard testimony about males at the facility and responded by calling the speakers “threatening” and “inhumane.” An appointee of Governor Healey compared the concerns to the oppression of the Jim Crow South. Meanwhile, the Department of Correction answers inquiries about numbers by stating that Framingham is for “female offenders” and that policy is set by the 2018 law and court rulings. Silence and deflection are not accountability. The officers and their union who appeared at the protest have made clear that the problem is visible to those required to manage it daily.
Maine under Governor Janet Mills operates under a similar gender-identity housing framework. Incarcerated women there have brought claims alleging harassment, threats, sexual misconduct, and retaliation. New Hampshire maintains a dedicated women’s facility and should examine these developments carefully before any expansion of self-identification rules. Across New England, Democratic leadership has treated biological sex as optional when it conflicts with gender-identity ideology. The result is that women—especially the most vulnerable—are asked to absorb the risks.
This is not a debate about compassion or language. It is about whether the state will continue to place intact male offenders, including men convicted of murdering, raping, and assaulting women and children, into the intimate spaces of female inmates and then refuse to disclose how many are there. The Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Nelson Mandela Rules treat separation by sex as a basic human right for incarcerated women. Massachusetts has subordinated that right to a self-identification framework. Correctional officers who live with the results have joined the women outside the walls in saying enough.
Women’s rights are human rights. They do not end at the prison gate. General Law 127, Section 32A must be repealed. Prisons must be single-sex again. Officials must answer for the conditions they have created and for the women they have failed to protect. Until they do, the question remains: Who is listening to the women behind these walls—and to the officers who see the consequences every day?
