It is this Friday that Levana Ballouz, accused under the name of Mohamed Al Ballouz, will be sentenced to life in prison for the murders of his wife and their sons. During the trial, she was sometimes referred to as masculine, sometimes as feminine. This unusual situation has raised a lot of questions among our readers. Some keys to understanding.
Published at 5:00 a.m.
Why was his male name used during the trial?
Because it was under his male name that Mohamed Al Ballouz (also Mohamad) was accused of the murders of his partner and their children in September 2022. But since she identified as a woman during the legal process, the judge , lawyers and prison authorities consider her a woman. During the trial, however, the masculine gender was often used, since it was “Mohamed”, with the appearance of a man, who committed the murders. “It is not to disrespect or to shock, but to mention the perception of the witnesses,” the Crown prosecutor explained to the jury.
Has the accused spoken out about her gender identity?
Yes. During the trial, the accused insisted that she was Mme Levana Ballouz and that everyone had to address her in the feminine way. Wearing a blonde wig, she was always dressed in a feminine manner. Last Wednesday, she insisted that she was a woman, a mother and even a “soccer mom”. “I have the right to be in harmony with my gender identity, in harmony with my body, and in harmony with my sexuality to reflect myself and my gender identity as I see fit. I have the right to be me. Quite simply,” she said, in a soft voice.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Drawing by Mohamed Al Ballouz, who now identifies as a woman named Levana Ballouz
Where is Al Ballouz in his gender transition?
We ignore it. Few details have been released about this, given that her gender identity has no connection to the crimes. However, we know that she has initiated the legal process to modify her gender identity and officially change her name to Levana Ballouz. We also know that she has been detained at the Leclerc provincial women’s prison since she identified as a woman. She also complained about her conditions of detention before the trial.
Will she serve the rest of her sentence in a women’s penitentiary?
Prison lawyer Alexandra Paquette, who represents some transgender inmates, believes she will be transferred to the Joliette women’s penitentiary to serve the remainder of her sentence. “We have no information to the contrary,” said the lawyer, who had contact with Mme Ballouz about this. Under a policy adopted in May 2022 by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), all offenders can be incarcerated, according to their preference, in a male or female institution, regardless of their sex at birth. Prison authorities can refuse a transfer only if “overriding health or safety concerns cannot be resolved,” the policy states. “In the case of M.me Ballouz, I don’t see how we could apply this exception, knowing that she is already in a prison [provinciale] for women,” says Me Paquette.
Are there many transgender criminals getting transferred to women’s facilities?
“There are more requests that are refused than requests that are accepted,” says M.e Paquette. CSC says “gender diverse” inmates make up 0.4% of the entire prison population. From 2017 to 2022, CSC had received 57 transfer requests, primarily from transgender women to women’s prisons. Only 12 of these requests were accepted. According to Me Paquette, it is when the inmates’ security classification is assessed that most transfers are refused.
“As soon as we are faced with a person convicted of crimes of domestic violence and sexual assault against women, the Correctional Service applies the exception,” indicates Me Paquette. Cases of femicide, like that of Mme Ballouz, are however treated differently, “because the risk of recurrence is almost zero,” says M.e Paquette. According to a 2019 CSC study, 23% of offenders incarcerated in penitentiaries in 2011-2012 for violent crimes committed repeat offenses three years after the end of their sentence, but 60% of these new offenses were less serious.
Note that the Crown is demanding a severe sentence for the murder of Synthia Bussières due in particular to the context of domestic violence.
Do we have an idea of the profile of transgender inmates in federal prisons?
A Correctional Service report released in 2022 indicates that one-third of gender diverse inmates in federal penitentiaries had a history of sexual offending. In eight out of ten cases (80%), these were men who now identified as women, who committed their crime while living according to a masculine gender identity. Of these offenders, 85% had committed offenses causing death or serious harm to their victims. More than half of their victims were children (58%) or women (55%).
For what The Press Does she speak of the accused in the feminine form?
During the trial, readers questioned the choice of The Press to use the feminine gender to speak of the accused. The indictment names Mohamed Al Ballouz because the defendant identified as a man at the time of the crimes. But during the trial, the legal actors addressed the accused in the feminine form, since she now identifies herself as Levana Ballouz. Ballouz is being held in a women’s prison and has begun the legal process to change her gender identity. The Press has a policy of not “misgendering”, that is, using a gender in which the person in question does not recognize themselves. “A trans woman is therefore a woman and a trans man is a man,” states our policy on this subject. It is for these reasons that we chose to speak of the accused in the feminine form, while recalling that at the time of the murders, she was indeed Mohamed Al Ballouz, father and spouse of the victims, since that is how she identified herself then.
François Cardinal, vice-president of information and deputy editor of The Press
