Produced By: Kelsey Bolar and Andrea Mew
Written By: Andrea Mew
Disclaimer: This profile includes explicit language that may be considered profane to some readers. Reader discretion is advised.
As a woman serving a life sentence behind bars, Channel Johnson knows her chances at being a mother are slim. But when a male inmate who identifies as a transgender woman named Jonathan Robertson transferred to Johnson’s room at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF), her assessment changed. Under the false pretense that this male inmate could get her pregnant, Robertson manipulated her into entering a relationship with him, Johnson alleged.
As a “lifer” who longed to be a mother, Johnson thought this was perhaps her only chance to fulfill that dream. But, it appeared that Johnson and Robertson had different ideas of what their relationship meant. As she later allegedly discovered he was on medication that suppressed his sperm count. Looking back, Johnson has come to understand how emotionally and physically vulnerable she was after being housed in a small prison cell with a biological male.
The fallout of that relationship was traumatic, violent, and abusive.
Sadly, Johnson is no stranger to sexual manipulation at the hands of predatory men. She was sexually trafficked from the age of 13 to the time of her incarceration. But she told IW Features that she never expected to experience sexual trauma in prison.
However, due to California’s gender self-identification law in prison known as SB 132, male inmates can transfer into the cells of vulnerable and traumatized women such as Johnson.
Her experience with Robertson began less than a few months after Johnson moved to general population at CCWF, when prison staff moved Robertson, a biological male, into Johnson’s cell, which she described as “a tight little quarter” that she shared with one other woman. At first, Johnson said she and her roommate tried to be open-minded, and Robertson allegedly promised he would make Johnson, his new bunkmate, “feel as comfortable as he could” with his presence.
When prison staff were present, Johnson said Robertson acted “like a female, but as soon as the door shut, he was a man.”
Robertson learned that Johnson was sentenced to prison for life and expressed sympathy that she never got to have kids. Johnson said Robertson then began
manipulating her into a continued sexual relationship with him under the pretense that he could get her pregnant.
But according to Johnson, Robertson never told her that he was on medication that suppressed his sperm count. When she found out, Johnson felt betrayed and
manipulated.
“It’s easy for a woman that is a heterosexual to be manipulated if they are in the presence of a man and they’re saying, ‘Oh, I can get you pregnant,’ … and then you believe them, and then you start a relationship, and then [the relationship] turn[s] fatal,” she said.
The forced integration of male prisoners into the female population makes even meaningful consent questionable. It has also led to situations where women have become unwilling participants in sexual misconduct. Most cells at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF), for example, house eight people, so if two people have sex, whether it’s consensual or not, the entire room is forced to see, hear, and smell it.
The long-term consequences of this misconduct can be just as dire, as Johnson discovered. In fact, what happened in the fall-out of her relationship with Robertson was enough to convince Johnson that men should not be allowed in women’s private spaces — in prison or anywhere else.
Sexual relationships between inmates are strictly forbidden, and after two and a half months, a fellow inmate reported Johnson and Robertson to prison staff. Johnson then ended their relationship, but while Robertson was being moved out of Johnson’s room and the two were split in a yard-to-yard separation, he and their other roommate allegedly stole some of her belongings.
Johnson said prison staff did not help her out and, to add insult to injury, they criticized and insulted her.
“When I tried to tell them [staff] what was going on, they were very insensitive,” Johnson said, paraphrasing their responses: “They were calling me a faggot lover, ‘How was the sex with a man that’s a transgender?’”
Johnson said she started to feel unsafe and even suicidal. Robertson had allegedly begun harassing her and her family, threatening to rape her, her little brothers, her nephew, and her mom, and burn down her mom’s house. According to Johnson, he also threatened to murder her.
Robertson’s behavior allegedly landed him in administrative segregation, where, according to Johnson, he continued attempting to contact her through letters, some of which were lewd. At one point, she said he asked her to lie in an affidavit to his lawyer to say they were never in a consensual sexual relationship so that he could remain housed in the women’s facility.
Robertson eventually was transferred back to a men’s facility, but the harassment continued. Johnson said Robertson gave her mother’s address and phone number to male inmates so they could send threatening letters to her family as well.
“The men that are trying to turn into a woman, they come over here posing a threat,” Johnson said. “It’s not okay. I’m not for it [men in women’s prisons] no more. At first, I was for it, but I’m not for it no more.”
Though Robertson no longer lives at CCWF and Johnson was transferred to the California Institute for Women (CIW), she said there are still plenty of transgender-identifying males in both women’s institutions who are threatening women with physical and sexual harm. Johnson said she has not encountered one male who “truly wants to be a woman.”
When asked for comment, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said the department is limited in the information it can provide about an incarcerated person and, therefore, would not provide a response nor comment on litigation.
Two years ago, Johnson was approached by Lauren Bone, the legal director of Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF). Back in 2021, Bone filed a lawsuit on behalf of female inmates against the state of California to attempt to overturn SB 132.
Johnson said she wasn’t ready to speak out at that time because fellow inmates were shaming her for reporting Robertson’s behavior. But soon afterward, Johnson learned that another female inmate had been allegedly sexually manipulated by Robertson.
Johnson then realized she wanted to be a voice for all women, who deserve to be safe behind bars and not have to “endure the heartache and headache” that too many incarcerated women have already experienced at the hands of manipulative men.
Partway through 2022, however, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), along with other advocacy groups, petitioned to join the case and represent male inmates seeking placement in women’s prisons. Working with the state of California, the ACLU sought to have the case dismissed. They succeeded when the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed WoLF’s case on procedural grounds.
Earlier this summer, WoLF filed an amended complaint, adding two new plaintiffs. The case is currently awaiting a response from California and the ACLU.
So in 2024, Johnson joined WoLF’s lawsuit as one of four plaintiffs.
“My goal is for people to hear our voice,” Johnson said.
Too often, she explained, when women speak up about threats from male inmates, they face consequences –– from receiving 115’s, which are disciplinary actions that could add more time to an inmate’s sentence, or getting placed in administrative segregation, which is also known as solitary confinement.
She concluded: “I just want somebody to hear [us] and say that that’s not okay.”
