A sex offender receives full gender surgery. Should she be transferred to a women’s prison?

A transgender woman incarcerated as a dangerous offender since 2001 for sex offences against multiple women wants a judge to order Correctional Service of Canada to transfer her from the men’s prison system to a women’s institution following her recent gender surgery.

Correctional officials have opposed requests from Amanda Joy Cooper, 58, to be moved to a women’s prison, citing in court records her risk to reoffend and history of “obsessive attachments” to female staff, concluding she would pose a “very high risk to the safety” of the other inmates.

A hearing in the case is set for next week in Federal Court, with her Nova Scotia lawyer arguing that Cooper should be sent to a women’s prison because her sex, post-surgery, is now female as defined in correctional policy, and she fears for her safety in a men’s facility.

While the placement of offenders who identify as transgender women has been a source of debate for years, Cooper is one of the few currently in federal custody who have had full gender surgery, and one of an even smaller number of post-operative inmates denied transfer to women's prison.

“I think it's complicated,” said Rosemary Ricciardelli, a professor at Memorial University in Newfoundland who has researched transgender prison policy, including a study involving interviews with dozens of federal correctional officers.

“I think it's really, really complicated, because each human being has rights and we have to adhere and do our best to meet those rights. So meeting one person's rights can't compromise another, and vice versa.”

The current federal policy dictates that transgender inmates can apply to transfer to a men’s or women’s prison according to their gender identity or expression. Requests are examined on a case-by-case basis, including an assessment of needs, risks, and health and safety concerns.

Over an eight-year period up to March 2025, there were 129 requests from inmates assigned male at birth to be placed or transferred into women's institutions, according to figures provided by Corrections Canada. About three dozen were approved, with the remainder either denied (72) or withdrawn (22).

Gender-diverse offenders represent about one per cent of federal inmates. As of October, there were 90 who identified as transgender women, including no more than a dozen who have had gender surgery. Seventeen were housed in women’s facilities and the remaining 73 in men’s prisons.

Cooper was born in Montreal in 1967 and committed numerous sex offences in the area as a man before being sentenced as a dangerous offender. A psychiatrist noted Cooper’s sadistic urges, and the judge in the case said the offender “does not hesitate to use his strength, weight, and size to control his victims.”

Cooper is currently incarcerated at Millhaven Institution, a men’s maximum security prison located west of Kingston, Ont. According to an affidavit she filed in court, she was assessed for gender dysphoria in 2017 and began identifying as a woman three years later.

She underwent gender surgery in September 2024. She now has a vagina and breasts. She has no penis. Her correctional records now list her sex as female.

Since her surgery, Cooper has been in what she described as self-imposed isolation in a structured intervention unit, the term used by Corrections Canada for units that replaced solitary confinement in 2019.

According to her affidavit, she has been bullied and threatened by male inmates, and one grabbed her buttocks. She said she fears physical and sexual violence, and has been repeatedly called a derogatory term. She said she only leaves her cell to make phone calls, for health care, education and programs, and for meetings.