Below is a transcript of Forest Romm’s testimony which she presented at the 10/28/25 public hearing of the Massachusetts Commission On The Status Of Women (MCSW). Usually the MCSW posts their hearing videos on their YouTube channel a few days after a hearing. The video of this hearing was delayed by several months, is not listed on the MCSW YouTube web page and yields no search results in either YouTube or Google. Here is a clip of Forest Romm’s testimony that was posted on X by WDI-USA.
Thirty-four states have a Commission On The Status Of Women or similar offices and some of them hold public hearings. Engaging with these bodies is one of many ways to get your concerns on record and reach state policy makers and the general public.
My name is Forest Romm, and I am a Massachusetts resident. I serve as MA state contact for Women’s Declaration International USA, which is the US chapter of a global, nonpartisan organization of volunteer women dedicated to protecting women’s sex-based rights. I have been communicating with women incarcerated at MCI Framingham, a designated women’s prison. Under Massachusetts General Law 127, Section 32A, male prisoners who say they’re women may be accommodated in women’s facilities.
Most of these men have been convicted of sexual offenses and other violence against women and girls. One example is Robert Kosilek, now Michele, one of the first men transferred to MCI Framingham. He is serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife, whom he nearly decapitated with a wire.
Kenneth Hunt, now called Katheena Nevia Soneeya, is also serving a life sentence at MCI Framingham for sexually assaulting, torturing, and murdering two women—one of them his cousin, whom he raped with a broom handle and stabbed more than forty-one times in the vagina, stomach, chest, and neck.
More than 86% of incarcerated women in MA have survived sexual abuse by men. Now these men, proven dangerous to women, are not only granted intimate access to incarcerated women, but have also successfully sued the Commonwealth for access to costly surgeries intended to disguise their sex. These dangerous men who now sleep and shower beside incarcerated women at MCI Framingham receive preferential treatment due to the DOC’s fear of lawsuits by men who are often supported by “trans rights” lobbyists such as the ACLU.
Most of these men retain intact male genitals, and some stop cross-sex hormones immediately on transfer. Some are in so-called sexual “relationships” with incarcerated women, and multiple women have reported sexual and other aggression by them. The threat extends to staff as well: female correctional officers have reported being unable to intervene because the male offenders tower over them physically. Danielle Laurenti was a MA DOC officer for nearly a decade. A sexual assault survivor, she was forced to search male bodies and ultimately resigned as a result.
The women at MCI Framingham speak anonymously, fearing retaliation from both incarcerated men and the DOC. One woman asked me to share this:
Transferring men to MCI Framingham strains the already limited resources available for women.
It puts women in foreseeable physical danger.
There is little vetting of the men transferred.
Incarcerated women rely on this Commission to recognize that housing men in women’s prisons is cruel and unjust, and should not be a partisan issue. If this Commission exists to advocate for women, it must immediately condemn this policy and call for the removal of all male inmates from MCI Framingham.
Immediately following the above testimony MCSW Chairwomen Mary-dith Tuitt said the following: “Ok, thank you. Again, we have to be non-partisan on many things, but I’m gonna say we’re gonna research that, because I do a lot of prison work, and I’m in the MCI’s, male and female, and I know many that are still housed. I didn’t know that any had been transferred to Framingham, so we’ll follow up with our meeting on that.”
Five months later, on 3/24/26, at this MCSW public hearing, responding to another woman who testified about males at MCI-Framingham, Chairwoman Tuitt said that when the MCSW visited MCI-Framingham in the past that none of the inmates there had mentioned this issue. She added that the MCSW did not know about male inmates in the female prison and that when they go back next year they will look into it.
For more information see Inside the women’s prison where violent male inmates have their way, written by Forest Romm, Published in The Hill, 1/7/26
Record of Our Dissent is a reoccurring portion of our newsletter dedicated to publishing previously submitted letters, public testimony and comment written to oppose Massachusetts and federal laws and policies which erode the sex-based rights of women and girls as well as child safeguarding. In addition to documenting our our dissent, we hope these writings will inspire others to speak out and take action. If you have something to share with our readers please contact us at ma4women@proton.me.
This is one of the most jaw dropping examples of the crazy making that has resulted from gender ideology. As Jesse Singal recently said, if you genuinely believe that male convicts are women, you would “logically” conclude they belong in women’s prisons. This is completely insane.
And yet, millions of “trans allies” refuse to acknowledge it.