37 year old Kanautica Zayre-Brown acknowledges she broke the law, and as a consequence of it is now serving a nearly ten year sentence after being convicted of insurance fraud.
But despite being a post-operative trans person, having her name legally changed before starting her sentence, why am I not surprised that North Carolina keeps violating the 8th Amendment by refusing to recognize her as female and housing her in a male prison.
Zayre-Brown was imprisoned back in 2017, and is currently at the medium security Hartnett Correctional Institution in Lillington, NC, serving a nine year and 11 month sentence.
While the North Carolina Department of Public Safety recently adopted a policy that entitles transgender inmates to services including gender appropriate housing, they have repeatedly denied Zayre-Brown's requests to be moved to a women's prison.
They also refuse to give her feminine items as well
That forces her to shower in front of male inmates, and she fears that she will be sexually assaulted it that continues. Housing a trans woman with men is also a violation of the cruel and unusual punishment portion of the 8th Amendment, and I'm surprised they haven't been sued for it yet..
Zayre-Brown says that all she wants is fairness and a transfer to a women's prison. The NC DPS claims they are reviewing the case again.
I will be watching to see what happens in this case.
One of the questions still resonating from Jazmina Saavedra's gleeful harassing of a trans woman using the restroom in a Los Angeles Denny's is what was Denny's reaction to it?
Here's their statement about the incident:
We are extremely disturbed by the incident that took place at our Los Angeles restaurant this week. At Denny’s, we do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, inclusive of gender identity and sexual orientation.
We are dedicated to providing a welcoming dining environment for all our guests and believe that our transgender guests and team members should be allowed to use the bathroom of the gender they identify with. Our restaurant teams attend training which covers our policies against discrimination and promotes respect for all guests.
In this case, the video of this incident does not tell the full story. Our manager was approached by a guest complaining that a man was in the women’s restroom. Once a female team member checked that no one else was in there, the manager entered.
Before seeing the guest, the manager observed drug paraphernalia on the floor near the guest and asked the guest to leave based on that observation, and not on her gender identity.
There is no place for discrimination of any kind in our restaurants. We apologize to our transgender guest and others in the restaurant that had to endure another customer’s disrespectful behavior.
-Denny's
Yeah right, Denny's. I am skeptical about the all too convenient allegation that the trans woman was being thrown out for 'using drugs' in the restroom.
What about your failure in throwing the person out (Saavedra) who instigated the incident, possibly committed several crimes and violated the human rights of this trans person peacefully using the restroom while doing so?
Why wasn't Saavedra thrown out as well?
And naw Jazmina, you have a long ugly history as the spokessellout for Latinos For Trump of parroting anti-LGBT slurs, so spare us the 'I'm not a transphobe' rhetoric, because you ARE what we say you are and happily demonstrated it for the world to see. In addition, your reputation as an unrepentant homophobe and transphobe precedes you.
So don't get mad conservasnowflake because we are expressing as a trans community our First Amendment rights to call out your reprehensible behavior.
We're tired of peeps like you dehumanizing us. Our humanity and human rights are not up for debate or discussion. Neither are we tolerating anti trans bigotry being aimed at us. We have no problem calling it and you out for being a transphobic jerk.
Hoping that Saavedra will be punished at the ballot box June 5 for her behavior. The LA trans and gender non conforming community will have their say tomorrow at a peaceful protest being organized and sponsored by the Transgender Rights Movement from 11 AM -5 PM PDT at the Denny's located at 635 S Vermont Ave.
It appears to me that some trans sensitivity training is needed and necessary so that Denny's actions match the lofty words in this statement.
