By Hayley Feland
SHAKOPEE, Minn. – Female inmates are being forced to share a shower with a biological male at the Shakopee Minnesota Correctional Facility, according to reports by Reduxx.
Bradley Richard Sirvio, 53, is a convicted murderer and is sentenced to life in prison. He was transferred to the state’s only women’s prison in November 2023.
Sirvio’s other convictions include multiple charges of assault, burglary, and theft.
Two women who are housed with Sirvio reportedly came forward to Reduxx to protest the situation that leaves them feeling “uncomfortable.” The women say they have been told to share a shower with him, despite him having had “no surgery whatsoever,” Reduxx reported.
One woman, who was going by the name Letitia, said, “They put a man next door to me. He claimed to be transgender. I now have to share the same wing with him. I also share the same shower with no lock on the inside door … The whole wing of women share just one shower, and we do not have another shower besides this one. Some of the women live in the wing lounge, and this is their only bathroom.” She said Sirvio “is fully a man.”
“This man is not transgender. No surgery has been done whatsoever. He is fully a man, and still has a man’s body part attached to him. He acts like a man, sounds like a man, behaves like a man,” Letitia continued.
Another woman incarcerated with Sirvio also spoke to Reduxx about her concerns. “There are women here who have been assaulted by men, and may have PTSD because of it. We can’t go to staff and tell them how we feel about the situation because no one wants to discuss it. There are no locks on the bathroom door, so when taking a shower, I feel so unsafe,” the woman, going by the name of Kari, said.
At least five male individuals are now or were housed in the women’s prison in Shakopee following the implementation of its new gender identity policy that was approved in January 2023 and revised in April of this year.
As Alpha News reported, these inmates include Sirvio as well as Sean Windingland and Elijah Berryman, who are both convicted of sexually abusing children.
An employee of the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) quit her job following the implementation of the policy, telling Alpha News that the policy “created an unsafe environment.”
“I know that a lot of the incarcerated women do not feel comfortable in their living unit, they don’t feel comfortable walking about the property, they were uncomfortable in my classroom,” she said. “I just believe we’re re-victimizing some of these women, re-traumatizing them.”
The Minnesota Department of Corrections did not respond to Alpha News’ request for comment.
This article originally appeared at Alpha News and was reprinted with permission.
