That is not universally true, even if it may have applied to some parts of the US prison system in the past.
In particular, influential British prison reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Elizabeth Fry and John Howard, promoted sex segregation as a means to prevent the sexual exploitation of women prisoners. They also pushed for many other reforms to make prisons safer and more rehabilitative environments in general. Nothing to do with patriarchal misogyny.
More recently, the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, first adopted in 1955, states as one of the standards that "men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely
separate". Their rationale was not patriarchal misogyny either, but rather how to maintain a safe and dignified environment for inmates.
How about a more charitable interpretation, rather than accusing people of lying: ACLU's position is that these shouldn't be public records, WoLF's is that the government should release whatever public records are required to fulfil the request.
It's not just those three articles though. When you consider these in the context of other data, such as this from the UK - https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-se... - which shows that trans-identifying males have similar patterns of criminality to other males, including sexual assault, the reality of the situation becomes clear: these inmates are not some special type of women who happen to have been born male, but men like any other.
So then the argument is just around the question, should women and men be housed in the same prisons, without any sex segregation? And we already know the answer to that.
WoLF are representing Andrea Kelly. The ACLU's own filing, that you linked to, confirms that she requested only statistical data, not personally-identifying information:
> 4.8 On March 19, 2021, Requestor Andrea Kelly made a public records
request to Defendant Washington State Department of Corrections that sought the
following records:
> - "The number of transgender individuals currently incarcerated broken out by facility location."
> - "Number of incarcerated individuals who have been transferred from a
men's facility to a women's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of male incarcerated individuals who identify as female, non-
binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed at a Women's
prison facility."
> - "The number of incarcerated individuals who have transferred from a
Women's facility to a Men's facility since January 1, 2021."
> - "The number of female incarcerated individuals who identify as male, non-
binary or any other gender identity who are currently housed in a Men's
prison facility."
I do wonder if you read past that first paragraph you quoted, because the above section supports the facts of WoLF's article that you erroneously called out as "outright lying".
> Why is that surprising? There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.
Here's an analysis of data from the Ministry of Justice in the UK, demonstrating that trans-identifying males have similar patterns of criminality to other males, including sexual assault: https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-se...
In summary: women in prison are being raped and sexually assaulted by trans-identifying males, who should never have been locked up in women's prisons in the first place.
It really is well beyond time for authorities to reverse these ridiculous policies that elevate claims of gender identity above all other concerns, and return to segregating prisons by sex like we had previously.
In particular, influential British prison reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Elizabeth Fry and John Howard, promoted sex segregation as a means to prevent the sexual exploitation of women prisoners. They also pushed for many other reforms to make prisons safer and more rehabilitative environments in general. Nothing to do with patriarchal misogyny.
More recently, the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, first adopted in 1955, states as one of the standards that "men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate". Their rationale was not patriarchal misogyny either, but rather how to maintain a safe and dignified environment for inmates.