Pen. Code, § 2605 · Article 1. Civil Rights
Pen. Code, § 2605
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) During the initial intake and classification process, and in a private setting, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shall ask each individual entering into the custody of the department to specify all of the following:
(1) The individual’s gender identity of female, male, or nonbinary.
(2) Whether the individual identifies as transgender, nonbinary, or intersex.
(3) The individual’s gender pronoun and honorific.
(b) A person incarcerated by the department may not be disciplined for refusing to answer, or for not disclosing complete information in response to, the questions pursuant to this section.
(c) At any time, a person under the jurisdiction of the department may inform designated facility staff of their gender identity, and designated facility staff shall promptly repeat the process of offering the individual an opportunity to specify the gender pronoun and honorific most appropriate for staff to use in reference to that individual, in accordance with subdivision (a).
(d) Staff, contractors, and volunteers of the department shall not consistently fail to use the gender pronoun and honorific an individual has specified in all verbal and written communications with or regarding the individual that involve use of a pronoun and honorific.
(e) For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(1) “Gender pronoun” means a third-person singular personal pronoun, such as “he,” “she,” or “they.”
(2) “Honorific” means a form of respectful address typically combined with an individual’s surname.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Added by Stats. 2020, Ch. 182, Sec. 3. (SB 132) Effective January 1, 2021.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN§ionNum=2605.
- Text hash
- sha256 16af0c81a50be18b48e81e9b3303ebd606f726f5355a42c11fc49209a1312838
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.