A petition to have a violent male removed from Limerick women’s prison has gained over 14,000 signatures.
The petition hosted by CitizenGo seeks to have Barbie Kardasahian moved to a male prison facility in accordance with Barbie’s biological sex.
Similarly a petition hosted by Change.org to have Kardashian removed from the women’s prison has gained over 6,000 signatures.
Kardashian was sentenced to five years in prison in relation to threatening to kill two women including his own mother.
Barbie, who was born Alejandro Gentile, has 15 previous convictions including sexual assault, physical assault and threats to kill and was described by Gardaí as posing a significant threat to public safety.
Kardashian is legally recognised as a woman as he is in possession of a female gender certificate in accordance with the Gender Recognition Act which was passed in Ireland in 2015.
Gript’s Ben Scallan asked Taoiseach Leo Varadkar if he believed violent males like Kardashian – who is understood to have undergone no gender reassignment treatments and has intact male genitalia – should be held alongside women.
The Taoiseach replied saying , ‘No I don’t’, he added that the law might have to be changed in the interests of the safety of female inmates in cases like this referring to a similar case which took place in Scotland.
When asked if he believed Kardashian was a woman Varadkar replied that he had only recently become aware of the case and did not wish to make comment before being properly briefed on it.
A Gript investigation revealed that Varadkar’s office had been informed by email of the case as early as 2020.