Striking back at the potential dangers of President Joe Biden's plan to permit biological males to identify as transgender to get housed with females at prisons, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., introduced the Preventing Violence Against Female Inmates Act this week.
The legislation would prohibit the Bureau of Prisons from housing prisoners with persons of the opposite sex, which he rebuked as an "ill-conceived plan" of the Biden administration.
"President Biden's plan to house male and female prisoners together will put women in danger," Cotton warned in a statement introducing his bill. "Documented cases prove that placing men — including ones who 'identify' as female — in women's prisons puts female inmates at increased risk of sexual assault.
"My bill will stop the president's ill-conceived plan and keep men and women separated in federal prison."
Cotton's bill draws support from the American Principles Project, Heritage Action, and Concerned Women for America LCA.
The proposed legislation block "gender identity" as the criteria for assigning prison inmates and condition "receiving certain federal law enforcement grant funds" for state prisons that use gender identity over biological sex at birth.
There still could be a separate prison for transgender prisons, as long as they are of the same biological sex.
"A prison would be free to set up specific housing units for transgender inmates based on security, medical, or programming needs, but would not be allowed co-locate those inmates with inmates of the opposite sex," according to Cotton's press release.
Also, the legislation would not "prohibit co-locating male and female prisoners for reasons unrelated to asserted 'gender identity,'" according to Cotton.
"A state or federal institution would still be allowed to use short-term detention cells in a courthouse to house both male and female prisoners during a trial in which they are both witnesses, subject to normal security considerations to protect all detainees," according to the release.