British Trans Woman May Not Be Getting Locked Up With The Cis Boys

One of the problems we have had when trans women have been incarcerated for law violations is that far too many prisons operate based on the genitalia you possess and not gender presentation

For trans women, that is a problem that leads to them being mistreated by guards and inmates alike and walking targets for sexual assault. Combine that with a documentation issue, and you have a recipe for disaster

26 year old British trans woman Tara Hudson was harshly sentenced by magistrates in Bath to 12 weeks in the all male Bristol prison after admitting to headbutting a bar manager.   Never mind the fact that she has been on hormones, lived as Tara for six years, had reconstructive surgery, and been declared by her medical doctor as a woman.   But because she doesn't have a Gender Recognition Certificate, a document that confers legal recognition of her gender and it time consuming and expensive to get, she is facing having to do time in a prison in which according to an inspection report, levels of violence have risen since the last inspection and not enough was done to protect vulnerable prisoners.

And we can visualize the hell that would ensure for her if she was thrown into that situation.

After 122,000 people around the world signed a Change.org petition asking for Hudson to be moved to a women's prison, that request is not only being considered, but her case is being reviewed.

Her mother is hoping that the sentence will be reduced so that she can spend it at home on an electronic monitoring tag.

But Hudson should have never been put in this dangerous situation in the first place. It's time for Britain to listen to its trans citizens and consider changes in the 2004 Gender Recognition Act hat would allow self declaration of gender identity without the bureaucratic hoops and fiscal burdens that come with the current policy.

TransGriot Update:  Hudson will be transferred to a women's prison to serve her sentence. 

CeCe McDonald May Be Released Soon!

Looks like the early part of 2014 could possibly be a wonderful start to the year for our unjustly incarcerated sister CeCe McDonald.

According to information posted on the Minnesota Department of Corrections website,  CeCe McDonald has a projected release date of January 13, 2014 with another 13 months of supervised release.

That's good news in a case that dates back to a June 5, 2011 night in which she and her friends found themselves under assault after having racist and transphobic slurs uttered at them as the passed the Schooner Tavern on their way to a South Minneapolis store.  A fight instigated by Molly Shannon Flaherty resulted in the death of Dean Schmitz

McDonald ended up taking a plea deal when there was clear evidence of self defense, while Molly Flaherty, the person who instigated this drama, only served 180 days.

Hope it does happen on that date for our incarcerated sister, because she shouldn't have spent one second inside the walls of that prison. 

CeCe was recently interviewed by Laverne Cox as part of an upcoming documentary currently being produced about the case entitled FREE CeCe!

Will definitely be keeping an eye on this developing story as we get closer to the projected release date.  I hope I have more wonderful news to report on January 13.

Trans Prisoners Human Rights Need To Be Respected

One of the things the Kosilek case has thrust back into the spotlight in addition to the issues of SRS being medically necessary is the treatment of transgender prisoners.

Whether it's Jovanie Saldana, Dee Farmer, Lyralisa Stevens or countless others, one of the common threads is the treatment of trans feminine prisoners hasn't been an issue that has gotten the attention from trans human rights activists or the media it should probably because others have higher priorities like stopping anti-trans violence and passing ENDA.  

The 'they deserve what they get' hate on prisoners mentality from the general public and even people in the trans community probably plays into the negativity and lack of focus on this issue.  But I'll guarantee that the people who express those attitudes would find their attitudes rapidly changing if they were the persons that find themselves for whatever reason being on the receiving end of the justice system.     

Let's be frank.   Nobody deserves to be sexually harassed, raped, isolated or verbally abused either while serving time or for whatever reason brings them to the Iron Bar Motel or ICE detention.  

We have had far too many reports of trans women being disrespected, misgendered or verbally abused, placed in protective custody isolation for extended periods of time or deliberately thrown into lockups with cismale prisoners, putting them at risk for physical or sexual assault and possibly contracting HIV.  

The 8th Amendment to the US Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment against prisoners and reminds us in the 'free world' along with the 2005 Amnesty International Stonewalled report chronicling police abuses against the TBLG community reminds us that prisoners have constitutional rights that shouldn't be ignored just because they are serving time .  

If you're thinking bull feces as I write this, I need to point out there are many other reasons people get sent to jail besides the commission of a crime.  Transpeople who have been arrested for human rights protests, immigration detention by ICE or for general po-po harassment issues have also found themselves being mistreated as Autumn Sandeen discussed after her 2010 DADT protest arrest 


As this 2011 documentary Transgression discusses, the same thing is happening to trans detainees in ICE immigration detention facilities 




So what's the solution?   In Los Angeles the repeated incidences of violence against trans arrestees resulted in the LAPD opening a 24 bed facility in the women's jail specifically to house trans detainees back in May.

Trans people are the canaries in the civil rights coal mine.   How we are treated and our civil rights are respected by the justice system is an indicator of how well the rights of cis people will be respected and protected . 

It is just as important to have human rights progress inside our nation's jails and prisons for transgender people just as it is outside of them.  Organizations such as the California based Transgender Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP), Lambda Legal, Immigration Equality and countless others are working with local, state and federal officials to ensure that incarcerated transpeople, whether they are in lockup for 24 hours or life without parole don't face unnecessary cruel and unusual punishment while doing so. .

Conflicted Emotions About Kosilek Case

Usually when we have a federal court case that advances trans human rights I'm so giddy with excitement about it I'm usually posting info about the fresh legal victory on the blog as fast as I get the opinion and can read it and the synopsis of it.

But in this particular case that involves trans prisoner Michelle Kosilek in Massachusetts, I like many transpeople are conflicted about it. 

Kosilek ended up in prison for while transitioning, strangling her wife Cheryl McCaul Kosilek in 1990 and leaving the body in the trunk of a car at a North Attleborough, MA  mall parking lot.   She was sentenced in 1992 by a Massachusetts court to life without parole for that crime.

While there she changed her name in 2003 and began taking hormones to facilitate her transition.  She asked for treatment of her GID issues which was denied.  Kosilek has tried to castrate herself and kill herself twice, and filed an initial lawsuit she won in 2002 in which US District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf permitted treatment for her GID issues just short of the SRS.  

Kosilek filed the second suit in 2005 with the trial beginning in May 2006.  It resulted in Judge Wolf ordering on Tuesday Massachusetts state prison officials to provide sex-reassignment surgery for her after finding that SRS is the only adequate care for her serious gender identity disorder.  

Judge Wolf also noted that the treatment for Michelle Kosilek had been prescribed by Department of Correction doctors, and that the only justifications for denying the treatment were based on public opinion.

Wolf wrote in his opinion: “It is not permissible for prison officials to [deny treatment] just because the fact that a gender identity disorder is a major mental illness is not understood by much of the public and the required treatment for it is unpopular.”

US District Court Chief Judge Mark Wolf also noted that the treatment for Michelle Kosilek had been prescribed by Department of Correction doctors, and that the only justifications for denying the treatment were based on public opinion.  

By the way conservafools, before you start ranting about 'activist judges', Judge Wolf was a Reagan appointee 

What is making us in the trans community queasy about this ruling is that although it's a federal court legal victory recognizing that GID is a medical condition in which SRS is the treatment for it,  we're worried that this one is going to cause a little turbulence for our movement.

US Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) who while a member of the Massachusetts Senate tried to sponsor a law to ban SRS and hormone treatments for trans prisoners in reaction to this case has already decried the decision as "a waste of tax dollars' and called for an appeal of it.

Um Scott, just an FYI moment for you, some of those tax dollars are earned and paid every April 15 by transgender residents of Massachusetts as well.  

We in the trans community are nervously aware of the individuals and groups who have no problem hating on us.  It's also easy to hate on people in prisons and believe it's a waste of taxpayer dollars to give them 'three hots and a cot', especially when that prisoner murdered someone.  

You have both morphing into the problematic visage of Michelle Kosilek.  To pour gasoline on this combustible mix of transphobic negativity, add the fact she just won a legal case to provide her with an SRS surgery that many people still regard as frivolous or cosmetic and this ruling comes down in the middle of a contentious political campaign season..  

But let me make this point crystal clear.  No one in the trans community, myself included, is condoning what Kosilek did.   I find it particularly odious and distasteful when I'm writing posts on a monthly basis about African descended trans women being killed and the perpetrators of those trans murders have yet to be brought to justice and Kosilek took someone's life.   It's also infuriating to me that we can barely get anyone to pay attention to the fact. that young African-American transwomen are unnecessarily dying.

Gender Identity Disorder is a recognized medical condition. Under the Constitution's equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment and the cruel and unusual punishment clause in the 8th Amendment, recently backed up by the 2010 Fields vs Smith case, you cannot deny a person hormones or SRS if they are transgender especially if they were being treated for GID before incarceration.

Unlike Scott Brown's unsuccessful attempt in Massachusetts, Wisconsin in reaction to the Kosilek case in 2004 successfully enacted a law banning SRS and hormones for trans prisoners that got struck down by Fields v Smith for those constitutional violations. 

But there's also a legal principle at stake here that was upheld in this case.  Just like everything else in life, crime and punishment issues are riddled with gray areas.

Prisoners still have constitutional rights that just because they are incarcerated can't and shouldn't be suspended or abridged because public opinion demands retribution or revenge for their crimes or it would cause problems in these public officials re-election campaigns or public relations headaches.
  . 

Speaking of public relations headaches, we can count on our haters and right wing media to seize on this case and rant about it on right wing talk radio and the Conservosphere for a few weeks. 

But trans community, I also need to point out that some of our legal victories have come from prisoners like Kosilek and Dee Farmer successfully filing lawsuits to stand up for their human rights and organizations such as TGI Justice , Lambda Legal and GLAD standing up for them. 

In the process of winning those federal suits defending their human rights, they expanded rights for us trans people that are in the 'free world' in the process.