This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. This particular case is taking place in Canada where a convicted sex offender named Manfred Sperling with a long record of violent offenses against women is serving a life sentence in a men’s prison.
Sperling is currently serving a life sentence at Millhaven Institution, a maximum-security prison for men. Since the age of 19, Sperling has been in and out of prison for committing sex crimes, and received his first conviction for sexual assault in 1986. One of his first victims was reportedly an 11 year-old girl, whom Sperling groped at a local gym.
Following his release in 1998, the predator went on a five-day sexual assault spree. At least four victims were identified, including a child. Sperling grabbed the 12 year-old girl from behind by the neck and told her, “I’ll rape you,” but the girl was able to escape the attack.
Two days after that incident, Sperling attempted to assault a 53 year-old woman at a mall as she was leaving her car. However, she was able to fend him off and fled. Just one hour later, according to local newspaper The Gazette, Sperling again targeted a woman in a parking lot, where he ordered her to strip naked and raped her.
In 2020, Sperling began identifying as trans and calling himself Amanda Joy Cooper. In 2024 he had surgery.
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.
Cooper is now appealing to be moved to a women’s prison.
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 About three dozen were approved, with the remainder either denied (72) or withdrawn (22).
Cooper’s lawyer intends to use a prison directive which states an inmate’s prison assignment must align with their genitals. In this case, the lawyer plans to argue, that means Cooper belongs in the women’s prison. But the prison system notes that Sperling/Cooper only wound up in the supermax men’s prison because he threatened violence against female prison staffers.
In an affidavit from last September, a parole officer said Cooper had been “increasingly verbally abusive” toward female staff in recent months, and there were a number she was not allowed to have contact with.
“Overall, CSC believes that the applicant’s gender identity, hormone treatments, and gender affirming surgery have in no way mitigated her risk to reoffend,” the affidavit said.
“She denies that the offence cycle that currently exists is accurate, believing that the offence cycle belongs to her dead self. This claim does not show accountability from the offender as she places the blame on her dead identity rather than her current self.”
I’m a new man, er…woman, he explained. This person has been violent toward women since age 19 and still seems to have problems with women as recently as last year. But of course none of that matters to the activists who are pushing to put him into a women’s prison. Fortunately, there are also people suing to prevent this from happening.
Heather Mason, a former federal inmate who co-founded an organization now suing the federal government over its policy allowing what the group calls “trans-identifying male inmates” to move into women’s prison, said Cooper should not be granted the transfer she seeks…
“Sexual violence isn’t prevented by surgery,” Mason said of the Cooper case. “Correctional Service of Canada has already said that this individual’s behaviour and history make them a high risk to women. That assessment matters far more than anatomy.”
We’ll have to wait and see if a judge goes along with this farce and decides it’s okay to put actual women at risk from a man who was given a life sentence for repeatedly and violently attacking women. The answer should be a firm no of course, but this is Canada so there’s really no telling what might happen.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy Hot Air’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join Hot Air VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
