Transgender women who commit even petty offenses are liable to be sentenced to a year or two in hell. Just look at Alexis Giraldo. She stole a few things from a store and violated a previous parole, and the state sentenced her to Folsom Prison, a men’s prison. Giraldo takes female hormones and lives as a woman, but because she hasn’t had genital surgery the state has the option to put her among violent male criminals. (The other option is a psychiatric ward.) San Francisco and a few other counties maintain a special unit for transgender prisoners.

Giraldo had consensual sex with her cellmate, Jorge Villavacencio, but stopped after he became violent and possessive. But because she had consented to sex with Villavagencio at one point, corrections officials assumed that she had given her consent until the end of time. When she complained that Villavagencio was pressuring her, and later when he actually raped her, prison officials did nothing. It was only when she had strangulation marks on her neck that they finally moved her out of the general male population.

The state (which refers to Alexis as “he” in its filings) will try to claim that she violated prison guidelines by consenting to sex with Villavagencio at first. And that she refused a transfer to another cell.

But the specifics of the case almost don’t matter. The bottom line is that, as attorney Greg Walston points out, you shouldn’t stick a woman into a male prison population. Rape and abuses are almost inevitable, and indeed one academic testified that her research shows 55 percent of transgender prisoners have been raped. Compare that with 4 percent of other prisoners.

Does Jerry Brown (the Attorney General whose office is defending the corrections department) really believe that trans women deserve to be raped more than half the time, if they commit even a minor petty crime? I wish someone would ask him, in person.