Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: This is, Senate institutions on April 30. I think I said the wrong date. Seriously? 04/30/2026, and we are discussing H five five oh and we have on Zoom a witness Elspeth Stiffer if I'm saying your name correctly. Of the Women's Liberation Front and you've sent us a document yesterday, I believe. So we just wanted to hear your thoughts Sure, in

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: I'd be happy to. Actually, name is Elsa Seifer. I am a retired Associate Justice from the Supreme Judicial Court in Massachusetts. Retired and I am now board president of the Women's Liberation Front, which is a secular, nonpartisan 503C corporation that is dedicated to the mission of protecting and preserving and advocating for girls and women. And we're here to oppose this bill. I did submit testimony and I won't go through that testimony in detail with you because obviously you can certainly look at it and read it. But what I'm here about today is to just let you know or specify that where we have been with this. I'm also running a group of women and their lawyers and their former inmates and their women working in prisons. It's a working group of about 30 people, and we are dedicated to this task of trying to make sure that women can serve their time feeling safe. And what is happening across the country, whether it's in federal prison or state prison, is the women are not safe. And what happens is, I know it might be hard to believe, but one of the prison officers did admit that men often sometimes lie about their gender identity. And so we believe seriously that and they do that to get into the women's facility. There's no obligation for these males to have undergone any medicalization procedure. Ninety seven percent of males who identify as trans women do not have any surgery to their male genitalia and everything's working quite well. And so we have pregnancies, we have rapes, we have trials going on against an inmate because he raped two women while he was in the women's center and got one pregnant and then was transferred to another women's prison. Sexual assaults there started. So they have finally transferred him out, and he is back in a male prison, but he is still pursuing his female identity. And so a rape trial will be beginning in California shortly where the witnesses and the judge and the prosecutor, well, the judge has ordered everybody to obey the preferred pronouns of the inmate. And that will be very difficult for the women who are forced to test, who have to testify against them. They're being called, they're the victims, but it's very difficult to call your rapist a woman. And what we're finding is happening is that most of the women incarcerated have experienced abuse. About eighty six to eighty seven percent have some kind of abuse at the hands of men. Many of them are in most of them, their crimes are related to the males in their lives. And it used to be that in the female estate, the women could actually build a therapeutic environment among themselves. That becomes completely destroyed when men are introduced, regardless of how they are saying they identify or how they identify. And so what happens is the women are living in a constant state of fear, of voyeurism, of being harassed, sexually harassed. Often when they report this, it is a report that is not taken. Right now I am in contact or trying to be in contact with one woman in prison in Massachusetts who had complained about being assaulted by one of the males in there, and she was put immediately in segregation. I only can communicate with her when she is released from segregation and can have her communication privileges, but she does not want to go back into the female part of prison where there are men. And it's difficult to blame her for that, but her mental health deteriorates because she's in a segregated unit and is alone constantly. So what polls are showing, by the way, is that regardless of party, 70% of everyone, male female, believe that women should in fact, that prison should be separated by sex. It's not safe for women in those prisons right now. They're afraid to complain. They have a hard time getting their complaints heard. There are statistics that show that rape went down in the male prison after the PREA Act, but what it doesn't tell you is that rape increased in the female prison because they're trying not to keep count of that, but that is from the male prisoners and with the women. There are lawsuits right now in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Alabama, California, Washington, Oregon, Illinois. This is state and federal. And there are also lawsuits going on that the ACLU has brought trying to prevent the executive order from going into effect. And I won't testify long, I will let you ask me any questions you like. When this was going on, when this was being pushed, Chase Strangio is an ACLU lawyer who led the way for the trans groups. And he was in a New Yorker article in 2022, and he said, We asked people in prison what they needed, and they all said they wanted a trans unit, Strangio said. But the lawyers in the working group, believed that the LGBT units were stigmatizing and would only perpetuate the prison system, so they advised that inmate housing should not be determined on the basis of sexuality or gender identity, not solely. And the Department of Justice accepted the recommendation, and a number of units were shut down. Strangio now regrets the outcome. He says, We acted as though the real stakeholders were the law professors. So I really implore you not to permit Vermont to become another space where we have to struggle to fight to get the women safe. And I am happy to answer any questions that you might have if I can. I've been in contact with a lot of women prisoners and they're very afraid to talk. They're very afraid to make complaints. Nevertheless, as I told you, we do have a lot, there are a lot of lawsuits going. So if I can help you in any way in understanding this or provide you with further information, I'm happy to do that.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: Well, thank you, and thanks for the information that you sent. Does anybody have questions? Do you have any communication with folks in Vermont?

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: We have not yet, no. So we don't know what's happening. Don't know if anybody from my group has mentioned anything about Vermont yet.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: Okay.

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: That's it. I don't know.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: Well, we'll be talking about this. We're probably going to take a little adjournment for a couple of minutes, we're going be talking about it again at twelve at 02:30.

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: Okay.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: And I'm going to ask that they did speak about it, previously, the Department of Corrections, and I'll ask them to speak about it again.

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: Okay. I'm sorry. So, you'd like me to remain for the 02:30?

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: No, no, you don't need. I'm just advising you. That's Thank your

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: you. And I don't. I could, I have a, you know, we have a one page fact sheet. If you want me to send it to you, I can. It's.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: I think you sent us

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: four pages. We sent you lots of things. Yeah.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: One page with them.

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: But we are in this every day, this issue. And so anytime you want to reach out, we're happy to help.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: Thank you. Appreciate it.

[Justice Elspeth B. Cypher (ret.), Women's Liberation Front (Board President)]: Bye bye.

[Sen. Wendy Harrison (Chair, Senate Committee on Institutions)]: Bye. So since you mentioned the ACLU, we should probably invite them to have a different perspective. To Acellular? To have a perspective. Mhmm. We didn't prevent that time. The Acellular I'm sorry. The last GLAD? GLAA. Do I have I forget what this acronym stands for. Okay. All right. So we are adjourned until 02:30.