Trans-Identifying Male Inmate Caught Having Sex with Female Inmate at Washington State Women’s Prison

A transgender-identifying male felon who murdered his parents was caught in a sexual encounter with a female inmate earlier this month at the formerly female-only prison in Washington State, where they are both housed.

On March 14, a corrections officer at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW), discovered 35-year-old Bryan Kim, who goes by Amber FayeFox Kim, having sexual intercourse with 25-year-old Sincer-A Marie Nerton, according to an incident reported obtained by National Review.

In the late afternoon in the Medium security unit (MSU) at WCCW, nicknamed “Purdy,” the prison guard looked into a cell during a routine check and saw Kim “laying on the floor completely nude from the waist down with their cellmate Nerton Sincer-A on top of them also nude from the waist down actively having sex,” the report said.

“I/I [Incarcerated Individual] Kim’s hands were on I/I Nerton’s buttox in a spread open position while I/I Kim’s erect penis was penetrating I/I Nerton’s Vagina,” the report added. “This is against MSU rules and policy. WAC-504-Engaging in a sex act with another person within the facility that is not otherwise included in these rules, except in an approved extended family visit.”

The incident was counted as an infraction with a hearing expected to follow.

“Technically, there is no consensual sex between the incarcerated,” a Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution, told National Review.

However, “Washington has been mitigating the sanctions on offenders involved,” he said. “If both offenders call it consensual, then they seem to be getting into less trouble.”

The Washington DOC claims that consensual, non-coerced sexual activity between individuals under its jurisdiction does not violate the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a federal law enacted in 2003.

Kim was found guilty in 2008 of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the stabbing of his father, Richard Kim, and the bludgeoning and strangulation of his mother, Terri Kim, the Spokesman-Review reported. Kim killed his parents at their Mount Spokane home on December 5, 2006, as they returned from work. After attempting to clean up the murder scene and hide his parents’ bodies in an outbuilding, Kim went shopping the next day, using his father’s debit card to withdraw $1,000 from his parents’ account.

For his crimes, Kim was sentenced to life in prison. The defense argued that Kim had struggled with mental problems since he was young and tried to cast doubt on the testimony of psychiatrists who argued the crimes were premeditated.

In November, the Huffington Post featured Kim’s story in a sympathetic piece titled, “Inside The Brutal Struggle For Trans Care In Prison,” which suggested his crimes and incarceration were tied to his mistreatment at home as a child. Kim told the outlet that his parents often physically punished and threatened him for being effeminate and cross-dressing as an adolescent.

Amber was initially housed at a men’s facility in Washington before he was transferred to Purdy in February 2021 under the state Department of Correction’s (DOC) gender-inclusion policy. 

Male convicts can be admitted to Purdy if an administrative panel accepts their gender-dysphoria diagnosis. The policy, which was effectively rubber-stamped by Washington’s Democratic governor Jay Inslee, has not yet been codified into law as it has in California, but the practice has been wreaking havoc across the state’s prison system for years.

In December 2021, after Kim’s transfer, National Review reported that multiple male inmates who identified as women had sexually exploited female residents. A former female inmate of many years, who chose to remain anonymous, described witnessing and hearing of multiple episodes of sexual assault by convicted transgender felons. The woman herself also said she was sexually assaulted by a transgender inmate.

One transgender-identifying male inmate named Jonathan, who went by “Jazzy,” was accused of sexual assault in multiple complaints filed with prison staff by female inmates, the former inmate said. In one case, a female inmate woke up in bed to find Jazzy with an obvious erection “touching her all over.” At the time, Purdy denied having any complaints on file like those described by the inmate.

The sexual misconduct allegedly committed by the transgender transfers should not have come as a surprise to staff, the inmate said. Some of the men were overt in their attempts to seduce the women, but corrections officers rarely noticed, she said. Jazzy, for instance, groomed the girl he eventually assaulted for weeks, stroking fingers through her hair, flirting, and persistently making sexual advances until “finally she woke up to him molesting her,” the inmate said.

Former Purdy prison guard Scott Fleming told National Review in 2021 that a fellow officer had relayed an incident in which transgender-identifying male inmate Princess Zoee Marie Andromeda Love, formerly Hobby Bingham, was found in bed with a developmentally disabled female inmate, both naked. The woman, Heather Lee Ann Trent, was a victim of sexual assault and had been housed in the prison’s mental-health unit. Fleming said Trent was mentally challenged and had the disposition of a “little girl.”

The Washington DOC “strongly emphasizes the importance of inclusion and representation by recognizing the unique challenges that non-binary and transgender incarcerated people face,” a spokesperson told National Review.

The department reiterated that it uses “comprehensive housing assignment process to determine where an incarcerated individual is housed considering objective criteria that includes their gender identity.”

Before being sent to Purdy, Andromeda Love was found guilty of having sex with a twelve-year-old girl. After claiming to be a woman, Andromeda Love successfully secured a transfer to Purdy. Andromeda-Love often bragged around the prison that he would make a “million-dollar baby” with females at the facility, Fleming said. He often used hand signs indicating he would “make it rain,” both to inmates and correctional officers, referring to the large compensation package female inmates are entitled to if they are impregnated on prison premises, a sum he presumably hoped to collect.

Despite the steady increase in sexual-misconduct cases between male transfers and female residents at Purdy, the Washington DOC has doubled down on gender-inclusive housing and other benefits for trans-identifying inmates.

The DOC also sponsors gender-reconstructive surgery for male inmates who claim to identify as female, National Review reported in 2022.