A convicted rapist who began identifying as a woman after attacking a friend is complaining about the 'hell' of life in a male prison, it has been revealed.
Attack and Conviction
Lexi Secker, 36, was sentenced to six and a half years in prison last November for a rape committed in April 2023. The court heard that Secker, then known as Alex, lured a drunk female friend to woodland in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, under the pretence of sobering up, before sexually assaulting her.
Secker denied the offence, claiming the encounter was consensual, but was found guilty. Judge Jason Taylor KC said the victim was 'significantly affected by alcohol' and that Secker had 'hatched a plan to be alone with her'. The judge noted that at the time of the crime, Secker identified as a man and was 'clearly attracted to women'.
The victim, who cannot be named, provided a harrowing impact statement in court, describing ongoing 'unbearable anxiety, shame and fear'.
Life Behind Bars at HMP Ashfield
Since being incarcerated at HMP Ashfield, a facility housing around 400 male sex offenders, Secker has written a series of letters to Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners.
In these communications, Secker, a father-of-two, describes a litany of alleged abuses faced as a transgender woman in a male prison. The claims include sexual assault, harassment, transphobia, misogyny, and having urine thrown over them.
'Things that have happened to me since I've come to prison have been worse than the crime I'm supposedly guilty of. Is this justice?' Secker wrote in one letter published in October 2025, entitled 'prison's tougher if you're trans'.
Controversy and Wider Debate
The case has ignited fierce debate, echoing the controversy surrounding Scottish transgender rapist Isla Bryson. It emerged that Secker had been a vocal 'anti-TERF' activist online, having previously trolled author JK Rowling over her views on gender identity.
Rowling commented on the case on social media platform X, sarcastically noting that such offenders are often not 'one-offs' and that more predators may be 'hiding in plain sight'.
Secker's complaints come in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of 'sex' in the Equality Act refers to biological sex. In a May letter titled 'My fears, as a trans woman in prison', Secker expressed fear over 'what fresh hell I may be about to uncover' following this judgement.
Despite arguing that 'placing genuine trans women in male prisons is not the solution', Secker's appeals to be moved have been refused by the authorities. Wiltshire Police and the court have maintained that Secker was living as a man when the rape was committed and the crime is recorded as having been carried out by a male.
Readers of Inside Time have responded with mixed views. Some have been scathing, calling Secker's position 'absurd', while one supporter argued the prisoner was suffering 'additional punishments' because of being transgender.
