A Tulsa, Oklahoma, man sentenced to life in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing a 7-year-old girl over the course of a year has, since his conviction, decided that he is transgender and refers to himself as she/her. As such, under the Bureau of Prisons guidelines, the convict is eligible to serve out his sentence in a federal prison for women.

Robert Perry II was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor after repeatedly coercing a first-grade girl into submitting to sexual acts in his “man cave” with offers of candy and other items and the chance to play video games with him. The abuse took place between May 2017 and May 2018, according to prosecutors.

“The defendant preyed on an innocent child solely for his own pleasure, without regard to the grievous and long-lasting harm his depraved conduct would cause,” the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Field Office, Edward Gray, said. “Let it be known that the FBI and our law enforcement partners will not tolerate crimes against children, and as evidenced by today’s verdict, neither will the community.” 

Nine months later, U.S. District Judge Jack Zouhary sentenced the 32-year-old Perry to life in federal prison. “Robert Perry’s crimes are despicable. The defendant repeatedly abused a 7-year-old girl for whom the defendant was responsible,” U.S. Attorney Clint Johnson said. “This week, the Court made it clear that Perry’s predatory crimes and blame shifting warranted a lifetime in federal prison.”

In his sentencing guidelines, the judge recommended that Perry be remanded to a medium security prison or a facility “that will allow him the opportunity in the most comprehensive mental health and gender-care treatment programs.”

A press release issued in May 2022 by the Department of Justice when Perry was convicted of the charges against him refers to him as a man and makes no mention of his transexual identity. A subsequent press release by the department, issued in late February when he was sentenced, replaced the word “man” with “Tulsan” and notes at the bottom, “The defendant, Robert Perry II, now identifies as she/her.”

Perry was previously convicted in Tulsa County District Court in 2020, but the conviction was later dismissed after the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute the case. Perry is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation, and the crimes occurred within the tribe’s reservation. Only the federal government or tribes have jurisdiction to prosecute cases that occur in Indian Country that involve Native American defendants.

An activist group that seeks to prevent the housing of men who identify as women in female-only prisons, Keep Prisons Single Sex USA, says there are more than 1,500 federal inmates who identify as transgender in the United States, nearly half of whom are in prison for sex-related crimes.

Under guidelines published by the Bureau of Prisons in January 2022, prison managers are instructed to consider inmates’ gender identity when deciding where to house those inmates. The policy was a reversal of Trump-era rules that required inmates to be housed in units based solely on their biological sex.