OAN’s Brooke Mallory
6:48 PM – Monday, June 26, 2023
Dana Rivers, a male-to-female transgender activist and former public high school teacher who shot and brutally murdered an interracial lesbian couple and their adopted son in their Oakland, California, home after midnight in 2016, is now being transferred to a woman’s prison.
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Seven years later, after being convicted of the crimes in 2016, Rivers, formerly named David Warfield, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Rivers had been previously imprisoned in a county jail until the most recent transfer. Rivers was transferred to the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla after requesting to utilize SB132, a beneficiary of a California law that went into effect a few years ago, which allows offenders to request that their gender identification determine where they are housed.
Activists told The Washington Post that they considered Rivers’ conduct a “hate crime against biological women.” Therefore, allowing the transgender woman to reside at an all-women’s prison was potentially risky in their opinion.
One of Rivers’ victims, Charlotte Reed, 56, was shot twice and stabbed 40 times by Rivers.
Rivers also shot her wife, Patricia Wright, 57, in the back and left breast. Rivers additionally stabbed her in the neck and shoulder. Lastly, Rivers decided to fatally shoot the couple’s adopted 19-year-old son, Benny, whom they had reportedly adopted from Africa.
According to court documents, authorities arrived at the residence after a neighbor heard numerous gunshots, which prompted them to quickly call the police. The police finally arrived and discovered the blood-soaked Rivers, who was shaking and clutching a can of gasoline.
Knives and ammunition were also discovered in the transgender woman’s pockets, according to authorities.
Rivers had personally known Reed, one of the victims, via “the Deviants,” which was an all-female motorcycle organization where both were members.
The assailant fought a protracted court battle against going to trial, attempting to claim legal insanity, but was still convicted by an Alameda County jury months ago and was finally taken in last week.
Rivers was considered a “trailblazing” transgender activist who was very open about her transition in 1999, when the former teacher spoke with ABC News’ 20/20 shortly after undergoing surgery.
Activist Kara Dansky stated that the murders were indeed a “hate crime” against women. Dansky, who attended a portion of Rivers’ trial, updated a blog about the event and referred to Rivers as “he” while speaking to the press. Dansky has been vocal about her frustration with transgender women who try to force themselves into safe spaces made for biological women.
“When women kill, they don’t usually do it so brutally,” said Dansky, the author of “The Abolition of Sex: How the Transgender Agenda Harms Women and Girls.”
“There was something truly vile about the way this was carried out and his obvious hatred of her. My feeling from knowledge of the case is that he killed her because he couldn’t be her, and he shouldn’t be in prison with other women,” asserted Dansky.
Pro-women activists, who are called names like “TERF,” blame SB-132, the “Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act,” created by State Senator Scott Wiener (D-Pa.), in part for allowing transgender women to enter female-only prisons.
Some trans-transfer requests for prison are submitted in good faith by sincere individuals who struggle with gender dysphoria, however, by decreasing admission standards, officials have allowed many “fakers” to serve their sentence in more comfortable women’s prisons while endangering other female convicts with physical or sexual abuse.
“I threw up when I heard that law,” said Amie Ichikawa, 41, who runs Women II Women, a support group for ex-female prisoners as well as those currently incarcerated. “It provides privileges that no other prisoners in the state get.”
Marina Volz, 34, whose former name was Matthew, described “herself” as a transgender female in order to be quietly moved to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women after being caught participating in child sexual abuse of his 7-year-old daughter in 2022.
Ichikawa, who had served five years herself at Chowchilla for a failed drug transaction, told the press that Rivers, who claims to have had gender transition surgery, should not be sent to a men’s jail if she has in fact had the surgery. However, she did still believe that Rivers committed a “hate crime” against women.
Ichikawa emphasized that, due to the lack of jails specifically for transgender convicts, Rivers should be held with greater care and under more intensive watch in Chowchilla.
According to Ichikawa, biological female convicts are frequently afraid of transgender detainees due to the difference in biological strength and the possibility of rape, making them more of a threat.
“They get very anxious when a [trans woman] gets processed in,” she said. “Even when they’re post-op, if they get mad they go right back to angry man mode.”
Ichikawa further alleged that Wiener’s bill gives trans women convicts the right to select where they are held within women’s prisons, including the ability to choose their own sleeping quarters or cells.
“I got my a** whooped by my bunkie for three months, but when I went to a housing officer to ask for a transfer to a different unit she just looked at me and said, what kind of Asian are you‚ Chinese, Japanese, or on your knees?” Ichikawa said.
“I was devastated. But if I were a trans prisoner, I could pick and choose where I wanted to live and with who,” she concluded.
#GetMenOut group activists staged a protest in Trenton, New Jersey, in April, where they read letters from four biological female convicts at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility. One transgender woman who still had male genitalia reportedly impregnated two different female convicts last year.
“Being subjected to live amongst [trans women] who remain equipped with their manhood is extremely overwhelming and difficult for me,” one female prisoner said, explaining how she had endured child abuse by her father and was triggered by seeing male genitalia.
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