The Oregon Department of Corrections was recently ordered by a Marion County Circuit Court to immediately provide “gender affirming” care to a transgender inmate in their custody. While the single initial report on the case only referred to the inmate by his “chosen” name, Reduxx has learned that Nova June Gaia, 38, was imprisoned for sexually abusing a young girl.
Formerly known as Joseph Daniel Neilson, Gaia was first arrested in 2018 at a property in Portland, Oregon after being reported for sexually assaulting a child he was babysitting. The exact nature of the relationship between Gaia and the victim is being withheld by Reduxx for the purposes of protecting the child’s identity and dignity.
On September 3, 2018, Gaia was watching over two children, a girl and a boy, at a home in Clackamas County. According to the police report obtained by Reduxx, while taking the girl to the bathroom, Gaia licked the girl’s genitals. Later on that same day, Gaia fondled the girl’s vagina.
The girl would eventually disclose the abuse and Gaia was visited by police less than two weeks later. During questioning, Gaia asserted that he had accidentally molested the child while playing with her. Bizarrely, Gaia claimed that the girl’s pants and underwear had fallen off while they were play-fighting, and that he had inadvertently touched his fingers and mouth to her genitals repeatedly.
When placed in custody, Gaia’s legal sex was male and he had a full beard. But despite there being no indication Gaia identified as transgender prior to his arrest, in July of 2019, while awaiting sentencing, Gaia submitted an inquiry to his jail asking when he would be transferred to Coffee Creek — Oregon’s only women’s prison.
Gaia would ultimately be convicted on 6 counts related to the sexual abuse of the girl, and was convicted on one count of felony Sodomy and one count of Sexual Abuse in the First Degree. He was sentenced to 24 years in prison, and, according to the Oregon offender directory, his earliest possible release date is in 2043.
Reduxx obtained a 555-page inmate record associated with Gaia’s incarceration history which showed that the first and only time he mentioned his gender identity to prison officials was in October of 2019. Gaia filed an inmate grievance against a Deputy alleging he had “exposed to the entire [prison] block” the style of feminine underwear Gaia had been wearing.
“The Deputy loudly informed the entire block that, first, someone was wearing female underwear then, second, that I was the one who had requested them. This very much endangered me and created bias,” Gaia claimed in his grievance.
The grievance was found to be “unsustained” and closed without further action.
While in Clackamas County custody, Gaia was prolific in filing inmate grievances. Of the 555-page inmate record obtained by Reduxx, 431 pages contain requests and complaints from Gaia regarding staff, facilities, resources, or conditions.
Dozens of the complaints relate to demands for medication or treatment for ingrown toenails, back pain, dandruff, and hemorrhoids. In one, Gaia requested approval to buy a Dungeons and Dragons book from Amazon.
Shortly after being remanded to custody following his arrest, Gaia converted to Judaism and began submitting meal requests for pork-free meals. But months later, he advised the institution of his intention to become a Vajrayana Buddhist monk and requested the ability to ordain while incarcerated.
In one grievance from November of 2019, Gaia complained of “insects in the broccoli,” asserting it was a “violation of his religion and sensibilities.” At the time, Gaia threatened legal action for the supposed infraction, calling it a “sanitation, nutrition, and religious grievance.”
In 2021, Gaia changed his name and legal gender marker. According to the Oregon Department of Corrections offender directory, Gaia appears to have first changed his name to Nova June Neilson, and then to Nova June Gaia, which is now listed as his “court/legal” name.
The following year, he submitted a writ of habeas corpus, which was in part alleging that he had been denied “gender affirming care” while in state custody.
In May of 2023, a Marion County Circuit Court judge ordered the Oregon Department of Corrections to abide by Gaia’s demands.
Senior Judge Cheryl Pellegrini found the state violated a clause of the Oregon Constitution that prohibited officials from treating people in custody with what she deemed “unnecessary rigor.”
The Department of Corrections must now arrange for a variety of tax-payer subsidized treatments for Gaia, including facial feminization surgery, tracheal shaving, breast augmentation, and electrolysis, and transfer Gaia if the procedures can’t be carried out in his current county of incarceration.
While Gaia is currently incarcerated at Snake River – a male facility – that may change following Pellegrini’s ruling.
While it is unclear exactly how many male sex offenders in the US have begun identifying as transgender and receiving state-funded surgical procedures, authorities face the risk of possible litigation should they fail to comply with policies that frame the concept of gender identity as a human right.
Last fall, in the state of Idaho, a violent offender who sexually abused a 15 year-old boy was awarded more than $2.5 million in legal fees after suing the state for withholding “gender affirming care” while he was incarcerated.
Adree Edmo, formerly known as Mason Edmo, who was housed in a male prison at the time, also demanded a transfer to a women’s facility.
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