NO PRISONER LEFT BEHIN

THE FIGHT FOR TRANSGENDE
GENDER VARIANT PRISONERS

.'I\(O PRISONER LEFT BEHIND

As prison reform, prisoner Fights, and/or prison abolition activists, we
often find our energy and work going to preserve and fightfor the rights
and gains we've won, while the forces of oppression and punshment are.
constantly at work trying to tear them down. In many respects, our
activism is often spent preserving the status quo instead of taking on the
prison/punishment system in new ways and from new angles. We, for
the most part, are continually on the defensive fighting to stop new
attacks upon the rights of prisoners and those who care for them.
Recently these attacks have consisted of the cancellation of visitations for
certain prisoners, the assault on attoney/client privacy, and the banning
of the media and human rights investigators to interview prisoners. But
while it may seem disheartening to realize that preserving the inadequate
status quo s what our struggle often revolves around, it sl remains a
necessary fight that we must undertake to block the further assaults upon
prisoners'rights. However, not all hope i lost, and some activists are
taking on the Prison Industrial Complex in new ways that are making
gains.

TRANG/HOHORHOBLA AMONGST THE CRISON ACTIVIST COMMUNITY

One of the new ways activists are taking on the system is in demanding
rights for transgender and gender variant prisoners. They are a class of
‘prisoners who've always existed but who, like the gay, bisexual, and lesbian
prisoners, have been ignored, abused, and oppressed, even among prisoners.
‘The animosity shown to these prisoners and the attempt to make them
invisible goes well beyond the prison walls and out into society, where they
are acceptable as forms of stereotypical prison jokes, but not as human
beings with rights. Unfortunately, the prisoner rights community has also
played a part of the problem pervasive within the whole criminal justice
system and how it relates to queer prisoners. It may be one thing to
advocate for the brother on death row, but the *faggots, butches, and
queens” are on their own or they don't exist.

Part of the problem within the prisoner rights commanity is their
unchallenged homophobia and transphobia. Many of them think they are
beyond it, when in fact they haven't even addressed it. Some of the problem
rests on former prisoriers who carry the distespect of queer prisoners they
learned or perpetuated while in prison out into the outside activist
community, who in tum look to them as ideological barometers of how
prison activism should move forward. This could easily be leaned from the
past example of Eldridge Cleaver, whose book *Soul on Ice" spawned a
new generation of prison activists who were all 100 willing to ignore his
unabashed, unashamed hatred of queers and his sexist atitudes. Though
that was then and this is now, things have changed slowly and only with
outside pressure have atitudes eased up. But the challenge continues, as we
saw when some queer prisone activists challenged death row Celebrity
Mumia Abu Jamal and the Philadelphia-based MOVE organization to issue
a statement on their feclings towards queers afte it had been disclosed that
MOVE had a heterosexist idealogy.

REVOLUTION THROUGH TRANS @RISONERACTIVISH

What s exciting for prisone activists fighting for transgender and gender
variant rightsis that we are hitting the prison system in 2 blind spot, one
they've never had to defend before. The prison administrators have always
had the lwxury of ignoring queer prisoners because in the past 1o one cared
for them and if they (the administrators) do acknowledge them, it s to use
them as pawns in prison yard politics. Previously, there was 1o outside
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civl rights movement making
demands. ‘There were no domestic partnership laws or non-discrimination
clauses for housing and jobs, and certainly there was no mention, until now,
of the rights of transgender people, separate from gays and lesbians, who
face a mixed form of sexual and gender harassment. As the movement has
changed from sexual liberation to include gender liberation, it has begun to
permeate all aspects of society. Itis now that the repressive, reactionary
forces common in society are faced with a new cal for freedom, ane they

will also have to fight against in the growing struggle for true human
liberation.

As the prison population exploded, especially in California and Texas, so
has the number of prison workers. Many of these prisons are located in
rural areas that are decidedly right-wing in culture and are staffed by people
from these communities. There s, if you wil, a clash of civilizations when
prison workers from these areas are faced with every type of person from
every type of community as their keep. So a visible, activist presence on
behalf of a population most of these workers never knew o, or wanted to
pretend to not know, certainly has its impact. Pushing for the righs of
transgender/queer prisoners not only works to expand and protect the
human rights of all prisoners, but piaces ideological demands on the
community outside of the walls o acknowledge that there s a realty
beyond binary gender roles. These subversive ideas are brought to these
rural homes, unwittingly and often begrudgingly, by the prisoners and
prison staff more effectively than proclamations from liberal city actvists.

HEALTHCARE IS THE KEY . .

Quietly at this moment, many fights ‘are happening all over the world over
the rights of trans prisoners, such as where should they be housed, what are
their physical and mental health needs, what does the system owe them as
far as protection, and so on. Not remarkably, many of these fights and gains
are happening in countries with socialist healthcare systems such as
Australa, Britain, and Canada. Pehaps it is because of this one factor
alone that queer prisoners n these countries have any rightsat ll.

Indeed, healthcare for transgender and gender variant prisoners remains one
of the op priorites in the lives o trans prisoners. Often,if ot always,
transgender prisoners who've been taking sexual re-assignment hormones
on the street are arbitrarily taken off as soon as they enter the prison system.
For a transgender prisoner, this could mean a deterioration of body changes
that have been made, which affects the physical and mental health o the
prisoner, Efficent prison administrators seek to keep prisoners happy
throngh different incentives such as conjugal visits, access to radios, and
being allowed o wear ivilian clothes at nights and weekends, thus hoping
to avoid prison iots and suicides. An efficient warden or medical officer
would see that heir transgender prisoners would receive the proper medical
and mental health services (ie., access to hormones, a relaxation of the dress.
Codes, opportunities (0 transfer 10 a gender-specific prison of their choice)
to préven situations where they may act out. Since the transgender
community i prison is always a smal percentage of the prison population,
oting as a means of leting off stean is not an option, So many prisoners
take their lives in their own hands out of frustration and hardship.

‘However, even though the prisoner is transgender, every prisoner suicide
affects the prison population marale as @ whole. Unfortunately, most prison
administrators still fail to come to grips with this situation.

Transgenders also make up a good percent of prisoners living with
HIV/AIDS. Healthcare for HIV positive prisoners varies from state to sate,
‘but all states share the common lack of adequate prison healthcare. Often,
prisons with HIV units are staffed by doctors and nurses who are not HIV.
specialists and have no knowledge of drug side effects or dosage. Many of
them have been reprimanded in the outside world and are on probation for
Such reasons as sexual harassment and medical negligence. Medical staff in
these prisons often play the dual role of prison guard and healthcare
‘provider. This duality often leads to medical neglect 5o severe that
prisoners at vasious institutions have been known 10 drop like fles from
lack of medical attention. Some have died from abscesses that could've
been prevented if only the prisoner had access t0 soap and water, Some,
like Jennifer Sutton at California State Prison ~ Corcoran, have died from
‘preventable kidney falure, even after activists alerted prison staff of the:
high number of prisoners with distended stomachs.

Transgender prisoners living with HIV face a double stigma; shunned by
the prisoners and staff because of their HIV status, mocked and denigrated
because of their gender identification. Doctors lie or are ignorant when
HIV pasitive, trnsgender prisoners request hormone therapy, who are then
told that HIV positive people cannot take hormones. Some just come out
and say "they're too expensive, you don't need them”. Doctors and nurses,
ik the rest of the prison staff have sometimes been at the center of sexual
abuse cases. One post-op transsexual woman housed at the Central
California Women's Facility had tried committing suicide because of the
severe harassmient she bore from the prison guards. On her suicide watch
bed, her psychiatist asked her to strip 5o he could gawk at her. The logic of
the prison must be, *let's take these doctors who've been reprimanded in the
outside world for sexual assault and place them in a prison 5o that at least
10 one will report the assault when it happens. And if they do, we'll just
pretend like nothing happened because hey, the price is right!”

ABUSE ISREAL

Staff play no, or very lttle pan, in respecting transgender prisoners (or their
visitors1), both in the men's and women's prison facilites. Indeed, it s often
their instigation and harassment of transgender prisoners that causes an
increased harassment from other prisoners, many who initially had no
problem with the transgenders. The types of abuse and harassment are
various, ranging from name calling to actual violence. In my interviews, I
have heard of prisoners being made to wear insulting clothing (hospital
gowns when they weren't sick),called every name in the book from "i" to
"punk”,strip-searched in front of a whole yard of prisoners and guards,
forced to perform oral sex, forced to strip and dance while the guard
‘masturbated, foreed (o single cell when other prisoners were celled in 8-
person dormitorics,cell extracted (chained, pepper-sprayed, and beaten into
unconsciousness), and set up for rapes.

‘There is no justice for many of these prisoners, as the grievances they file
against the staff while they are in prison are "lost" and therefore never
responded to. And of course, retaliation is the rule for speaking out, so
trans prisoners have grave options to weigh by sticking their necks out, In
the case of set-up rape, the prisoner could be Iabeled a snitch if (s)he
seports i, and snitching is a de facto death sentence. 1 is very rare that
prisoners can successfully litigate without the help of a lawyer, and many
lawyers do not want to work pro bono unless there is a good chance at
‘winning 2 large settlement. These settlements end up, in my opinion,
hurting the movement for trans prisoners rights, as they are in reality "hush
up" money and require no systemic changes. One legal opinion here in the
USS. related to the suffering of prisoners, including transgender prisoners,is
the Farmer v. Brennan decision. In that decsion, the Supreme Court ruled
that the men's prison where Dee Farmer, a transgender woman, was housed
reacted with *deliberate indifference” after she reported to them that she
was being raped by other prisoners, After she paroled, she sued them for
not stopping the rapes she was subjected to, rapes the prison staff knew
were happening and did nothing about. However, evidence of abuse alone
isit enough to sue under Farmer v. Brenran as one has o prove that prison
Staff showed deliberate indifference after knowing and ignoring those
conditions. For transgender prisoners, this avenue is nearly impossible to
take 1o lessen the abuse they suffer while in prison.

WHATTODO
So whatis to be done?

First, we must keep transgender and gender variant people out o prison.
Fighting for the rights of trans prisoners s a fight, but it would be less of
one f we didn'thave so many prisoners in the frstplace. We must fight
‘against mandatory minimum sentencing, the criminalization of drugs, the
criminalzation of prostitution, and sentence enhancements tht serve o
keep poor people locked up longer than absalutely necessary. We must
have "sce-through” prisons and reserve the right to unannounced
inspections, Al internal workings of the Department of Correetions and
e institutions must be open for scrutiny by the medi, citizen groups, and
‘governmental agencies. We must abolish al instnuments of torture in the
prisons such as the death penalty and the Security Housing Urits.

‘We must question prison policies wihin our own community and not be
afraid to take controversial stands, even when we are the only ones speaking
‘about them. We fnust become active in our justice system and expose
corruption and bigotry within the courtroom. We must monitor the police
‘and hold them accountable for the crimes they commit. And of course, we
‘must present at all opportunities an alternative to the prison system, one that
resonates with the people, makes sense, and doesn't deny the fallbility of
'human nature.
‘Gender identification must be a protected right and acknowledged as an
undeniable freedom as much as the right to love you who want and say
what you want. We must take this consciousness to our workplace so that
10 person may be discriminated because of their gender identity; who
because of discrimination tums to illegal street economies to survive, We
must make our schools safe for queer and gender variant kids so that they
can learn to read and write and be their own best advocates.

Lastly, we must become involved in direct prison activism, whether it's
conducting human rights investigations, ligating on behalf of a prisoner,
writing to prisoners, sending in books to prisoners, opposing prison
‘construction, informing prisoners and parolees of their rights, and
demonstrating outside of prisons or the Department of Corrections in times
of crisis.

‘The system banks on prisoners being social pariahs forever and they bank.
on the outside world not caring. In the minds of the povety pimps of the
Prison Industrial Complex, as long as there are prisoners, they have jobs.
‘We want folks to have jobs 100, but not at the expense of our sisters and
brothers. For every prisoner in the 2 million we have now, there must be
one person on the outside who will demand that if they have to serve a
sentence, they should serve one without the brutality and torture that is
present in today's prisons. We must denand that f they have to serve, we
s 2 commusity as well as the prisone: zmust benefit from their "ime out”
and that true justice is served, not the mockery of justice that pervades the
American justice system.

Itis then that no prisoner, no matter their gender identity, will be left
behind.
Kevin Weaver i prisoner rights activist with the Trans & Gender Variant in Prison
(TIP) Committee s the HIV/ Hepatits C n Prison (HIP) Committee of Callfrnia
Prison Focus, based out of San Francisco. He i also theformer coordinator of the
San Frariciscochapter of the Prisoner’s Literature Project and co-organizer of
Locked Out: Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual, and Transgenders Behind Bars,a community
forum on the rights o queer prisoners. Actve i a number of social Justice
movements, be considers himself proud forter poliical prisoner who spent 3 days
Jocked up with 300 Free Munia demonstratos, arested on tramped up charges

‘meant to quell political disent duting the United Nations S0th Annfversary held in
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‘The Boston Anarchist Black Cross functions as the defensive arm of
local anarchist struggles. We work o forge an organized support network
for local activists in need and for folks behind bars. We seck the total

abolition of prisons and work on projects in support of this cause.

Boston ABC
PO Box 230152
Boston, MA O
bostonabe@riseup.net

‘myspace.com/abeboston

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