International
New Documentary Details Female Sexual Assault Survivor’s Story Of Being Incarcerated With Trans Inmate
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
A sexual assault survivor gave an inside look at living in a female prison with male criminals identifying as transgender in a new documentary by the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) released Tuesday.
The six-minute documentary, part of IWF’s “Cruel & Unusual Punishment: The Male Takeover of Female Prisons” series, focuses on the story of Evelyn Valiente, a sexual assault survivor and former inmate at the Central California Women’s Facility. Valiente, who is using a pseudonym to protect her identity, was forced to share a housing unit with a male inmate identifying as a woman while serving time for killing someone in a shooting.
“At first I thought it was going to be okay and it didn’t take long before this one particular individual was manipulative, calculating, vindictive and always looking and seeking to do harm to another person,” Valiente said regarding the inmate, who had a history of sex crime convictions.
In 2020, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed legislation requiring the state’s prison system to house inmates based on their gender identity and not their biological sex. Under the law, corrections officers are required to ask inmates privately how they identify and then work to house them accordingly.
Before her time in prison, Valiente had been sexually assaulted, and said that being in the same housing unit as this individual, who had been convicted of sex crimes, as well as other men made it “scary” not only for her but for many women who had “come from very abusive backgrounds.”
“It’s a lot of walking in trauma,” Valiente said.
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Andrea Mew, IWF’s storytelling manager and co-producer of the documentary series, told the DCNF that while California lawmakers claimed that the transgender inmate bill was about keeping inmates safe, the law actually further victimized women in prison who often have been abused.
“It’s really interesting that California, at the same time that they are focusing on being all about rehabilitation, are subjecting women to being re-traumatized by a lot of their personal triggers,” Mew said. “Many women who are in prison are victims of sexual assault, emotional abuse, physical abuse and having men in their spaces can be a very big trigger for them. At the same time, it’s allowing violent male criminals to have unbridled access to, in many cases, the thing that got them there in the first place.”
Currently, five states: Connecticut; Rhode Island; Massachusetts; California and New Jersey as well as New York City; have passed laws allowing men identifying as women to be housed in women’s prisons. However, other states, such as Wisconsin, have reportedly moved biologically male offenders identifying as transgender into all-female facilities despite their violent criminal history.
In September 2023, a female inmate sued the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in New Jersey after allegedly being assaulted in prison by a male inmate identifying as transgender. Another female inmate from New York City filed a lawsuit in January, claiming that a prison official instructed a male inmate who reportedly sexually assaulted her to identify as transgender so he could have “access to female inmates.”
Mew told the DCNF that she and co-producer Kelsey Bolar wanted people to imagine how they would feel if someone they loved in prison was forced to share a cell or a housing unit with a transgender inmate with a history of violence.
“People need to put themselves in the shoes of people who are in prison and just imagine yourself in there, imagine your own daughter in there,” Mew said. “There are a lot of things that could happen that could get you into prison that are complete accidents, so imagine yourself or your own daughter is in that sort of accident. Put yourself in the shoes of the person there and think about how it would feel if you’re being physically, emotionally and in some cases, as we’ve seen, sexually threatened by male criminals while you’re just trying to do your time and get home.”
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
The Trump administration is fighting to block a global carbon tax that a United Nations (UN) agency is attempting to pass quietly this week.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN body based in London, is meeting this week to adopt a so-called “Net-Zero Framework,” which would levy significant penalties on carbon dioxide emissions from ships that exceed certain limits. The Trump administration argues the proposal could raise global shipping costs by as much as 10%, ultimately driving up prices for American consumers.
“President Trump has made it clear that the United States will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or harms the interests of the American people,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said in a joint statement Friday.
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“The Administration unequivocally rejects this proposal before the IMO and will not tolerate any action that increases costs for our citizens, energy providers, shipping companies and their customers, or tourists,” the cabinet secretaries wrote.
This week, the UN is attempting to pass the first global carbon tax , which will increase energy, food, and fuel costs across the world. We will not allow the UN to tax American citizens and companies.
Under the leadership of @POTUS, the U.S. will be a hard NO. We call on…
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) October 15, 2025
The proposed tax is part of the IMO’s broader goal to bring global shipping to net-zero emissions “by or around” 2050. Qualifying ships that fall short of emissions targets would face taxes ranging from $100 to $380 per ton of CO2.
Notably, the tax would be paid directly by shipowners rather than governments.
The Net-Zero Framework could generate between $11 billion and $12 billion annually from 2028 through 2030, paid into a UN-controlled fund, according to University College London. Meanwhile, other estimates warn that if the global fleet misses the IMO’s targets by even 10%, the annual cost of emissions could climb to $20 to $30 billion by 2030 and potentially exceed $300 billion by 2035.
Some critics equated the proposal to “taxation without representation,” noting that an unelected committee would have the authority to set and potentially raise the tax.
The Trump administration is urging member states to reject the proposal and has threatened retaliatory measures against countries that support it. These include investigations into anti-competitive practices, visa restrictions for maritime crews, commercial and financial penalties, higher port fees for ships tied to those nations, and possible sanctions on officials promoting climate policies.
“The Trump administration is right to draw a hard line against the UN’s latest scheme to export its climate agenda through global taxes and trade barriers,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Isaac said the proposed carbon tax, along with other measures — including the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires companies to disclose environmental and social impacts — “represent an alarming attempt to impose costly, extraterritorial regulations on American businesses and consumers.”
“These measures threaten U.S. sovereignty, inflate energy and transport costs, and weaponize climate policy as a tool of economic coercion,” Isaac said. “The United States must not tolerate foreign governments using environmental pretexts to dictate how we trade, build, and move goods. President Trump’s firm stance puts American workers and energy security first, where they belong.”
Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, also commended the administration’s efforts to block the UN measure.
“Not only does [Trump] oppose the UN carbon tax, but he has instructed his administration to take action against nations that try to implement it against the U.S.,” Milloy told the DCNF. “I am simply in awe of his commitment to ending the international climate hoax, which has long been aimed at stealing from and otherwise crippling our country’s economy and national security.”
President Trump warned Tuesday that Hamas will either follow through on its pledge to disarm under his 20-point Gaza peace plan or meet a violent end. “They’re going to disarm because they said they were going to disarm—and if they don’t, we will disarm them,” Trump told reporters while hosting Argentine President Javier Milei at the White House. “They know I’m not playing games.”
The president said Hamas had “misrepresented” how many bodies of deceased hostages it held after turning over just four on Monday. “If they don’t disarm, we will disarm them—and it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently,” he said before a Cabinet Room luncheon. Trump explained that he had conveyed the warning to Hamas through emissaries, adding, “They told me, ‘Yes, sir, we’re going to disarm.’ They will disarm or we will disarm them. Got it?”
.@POTUS on Hamas: "They will disarm. And if they don't disarm, we will disarm them — and it'll happen quickly and, perhaps, violently, but they WILL disarm." pic.twitter.com/69wOMao2oX
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) October 14, 2025
Trump’s hard line came just hours after his return from Israel and Egypt, where he joined regional leaders to mark the cease-fire his administration brokered between Israel and Hamas following two years of war. The initial phase of the deal included Hamas releasing twenty Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and the first of three planned Israeli troop withdrawals. The agreement was hailed by world leaders gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh, though several provisions remain unsettled—among them, the timeline and enforcement of Hamas’ disarmament, the structure of a transitional Gaza government, and the makeup of an international peacekeeping force.
Despite the cease-fire, reports from Gaza Tuesday described Hamas militants using the lull to target rival militia leaders accused of collaborating with Israel, executing eight men by firing squad. Under Trump’s plan, the United States would chair a “Board of Peace” overseeing Gaza’s interim administration while transforming the territory into a special economic zone backed by Arab investment and large-scale reconstruction.
The president’s remarks underscored his readiness to enforce the deal militarily if necessary—a hallmark of Trump’s foreign policy. Having leveraged threats of force to secure earlier hostage releases, he made clear that Hamas’ disarmament is not a negotiable point but a precondition for lasting peace.
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