The U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA) will host a women’s rights rally at the René C. Davidson courthouse in Oakland on Monday, December 5, 2022, the day convicted triple-murderer Dana Rivers returns to court for the sanity phase of the proceedings. The rally will take place at 10:00 a.m. PST.
Nationally-prominent radical feminists Kara Dansky and Lierre Kieth will speak out as women unfurl banners reading “Dana Rivers is a Man” and “No Men in Women’s Prisons.”
Rivers was born David Warfield. Just after midnight on November 11, 2016, police received reports of gunshots fired at a home on Dunbar Drive in Oakland. First responders found Rivers drenched in blood and running from the doorway of the house. He was in possession of knives, ammunition, and metal knuckles, and the house was on fire. Inside the house, the police found Patricia Wright and Charlotte Reed, whose bodies were riddled with bullets and stab wounds. They also found the victims’ 19-year-old son, Benny Diambu-Wright, lying dead outside in a pool of blood.
Previously, Rivers had been active in “Camp Trans,” a campaign against the rights of lesbians to hold the women-only Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, which took place for 40 years on private land. Patricia and Charlotte were regular attendees of the festival.
On November 15, 2022, Rivers was convicted of three counts of murder in the first degree and one count of arson. The court ordered the jury to return to the courthouse on December 5 to consider the question of whether Rivers was legally insane at the time of the offenses.
“Dana Rivers is a man, and sitting through the closing arguments
listening to everyone in that courtroom using ‘she’ and ‘her’ pronouns was nothing short of bizarre,” said Kara Dansky, the president of WDI USA. “WDI USA is committed to preserving women-only spaces, including prisons.”
“California state law permits male prisoners to be transferred to women’s prisons if they claim to ‘identify as female,’ and we are concerned that Rivers will apply to do so,” said Lierre Keith, founder and chair of the Women’s Liberation Front (WoLF). “WoLF has sued the state to stop these transfers, which are a human rights violation against women.”
Article 8 of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights (Full text at WomensDeclaration.com) states that women’s prisons should be exclusively for women, consistent with international law and the Mandela Rules on Protecting the Rights of Persons Deprived of Liberty.