An empty hallway on Thursday, March 19, 2009. Agnews Developmental Center will be closing by the end of the month. It was built by the California Conservation Corp. under the direction of Pres. Roosevelt in 1939. Most of the residents have already been placed in other facilities. (Karen T. Borchers/Mercury News)
Submit your letter to the editor via this form. Read more Letters to the Editor.
Push needed to pay
sterilization victims
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1927, Buck v. Bell, that states had the right to sterilize institutionalized people.
Today, about 600 survivors out of the more than 20,000 California victims are eligible for reparations. In 2022, only three people forcibly sterilized at Sonoma State Hospital received reparations of $15,000 each from the California Victims Compensation Board.
Project teams at the Department of Developmental Services, Department of State Hospitals and California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation are composed of only one employee, instead of involving survivors and advocates, to decide sites and types of memorials. The Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation Program ends on Dec. 31. Without direct outreach to survivors urging them to apply for compensation and involving them in the decision-making for the memorials at California sites, there will be no reconciliation or adequate reparations for the victims.
Sherry Smith
Glen Ellen
We are too quick to
ascribe hate as motive
Re: “Supreme Court strips LGBTQ citizens of rights” (Page A7, July 5).
A recent letter to the editor stated that the conservative Supreme Court justices hate the LGBTQ community. This is not true. The Christians I know do not hate people of the LGBTQ community. As a Christian, I don’t care or need to know what the sexual preference of another person is.
The issue is whether anyone can force someone to use their creative talents to promote principles they are fundamentally opposed to. One may disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision, but the decision was based on religious and free speech freedom, not hate.
When atheists file lawsuits against governmental entities for their involvement with religion, I don’t see hate, I see disagreement over religious liberty issues. As a society, however, we continue to attribute hate to every action or decision we disagree with. A sad state of affairs.
Douglas Abbott
Union City
Prison transfers threaten
women inmate’s safety
Re: “More California prisoners are requesting gender-affirming health care, including surgeries” (June 26).
Last week, the East Bay Times ran an article regarding prisoners transferring from men’s prisons to women’s prisons, a policy that’s legal under Scott Wiener’s SB 132. However, the sympathy in these issues is primarily one-sided on behalf of trans-identifying males without any thought to female inmates.
Males in a prison setting are a clear and present danger to women; this is why the sexes are segregated. More than 90% of incarcerated women are sexual abuse or physical assault survivors; when women are fearful in the presence of males, that is a natural trauma response. And though the article states there are requests for trans-affirming treatments, none are required for transfers, an loophole that no one talks about.
Women are being made inconsequential to the whims of politics and silenced when they dare to speak on behalf of themselves. It is unacceptable for male wishes to override female safety.
Ruth Nakagawa
Benicia