Two biologically female inmates at all-women’s New Jersey jail are pregnant after both had sex with transgender prisoners.
The unidentified pregnant women are housed at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility and prison bosses said that in both instances, the sex was consensual.
It is unclear if the women had sex with the same transgender inmate, or if it was two different inmates. Edna Mahan houses 27 transgender prisoners, and over 800 women altogether.
The correctional facility began to house transgender women last year as part of a settlement following a lawsuit brought by a trans woman and the American Civil Liberties Union.
Edna Mahan, the only women’s prison in the Garden State, does not require transgender inmates to proceed with reassignment surgery in order to be housed at the correctional.
ACLU legal director Jeanne LoCicero defended on Tuesday the policy, saying it ensured the rights of trans prisoners were not violated.
In 2021, two Edna Mahan prisoners filed a lawsuit seeking for the gender identity policy to be revoked, after they were allegedly harassed by transgender prisoners.
The women also claimed the transgender inmates were engaging in sexual activity with cisgender prisoners. A cisgender person is someone whose sense of personal identity and gender corresponds with their birth sex.

The union representing correctional officers at the facility issued a statement decrying the policy allowing transgender females to be incarcerated at Edna Mahan.

‘We opposed this policy change believing it would be detrimental to the general population of female inmates being housed at Edna Mahan and also bring added stress to our correctional police officers assigned to this institution,’ the union’s president told NJ.com.