They should be “housed where THEY will feel the safeties”.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/us/trans-women-incarceration/index.html

They should be “housed where THEY will feel the safeties”. While this article was being written 265 people housed in male prisons were trying to be transferred to female prisons and ONLY 7 people were trying to be transferred form a female prison to a male prison.

A major omission from this story is how biological men being incarcerated in all women’s prison has affected cis-women. There are unplanned pregnancies and they are now passing out condoms in all female prisons. The article claims there is limited data on what would happen if trans-men were incarcerated with actual men.

CNN helps make an argument that I’ve been making for years, gender dysphoria is a mental illness and should be treated as such. Suicide is sky high in that community, the majority drop out of school, a lot work in a sex trade and this article stats transgender people are “incarcerated at significantly higher rates than other groups”.

I need to see the “Walking While Trans” laws? This article talks a lot of Trans individuals being incarcerated because of “who they are” but then goes on to admit to having drug/alcohol problems and sex work. One individual claims to be put in a California jail for a non-violent drug charge. In California? Do you know how hard that would be? You have to be a habitual offender or dealing in large quantities for a non-violent drug charge puts you behind bars.

Heng-Lehtinen, “what is a women”? Heng-Lehtinen claims there are criteria for determining if “someone really is transgender”. The article then claims that “biological sex” is a controversial term and does not have one standard set of medical criteria.

Direct Quotes:

As recently as last year, the vast majority of incarcerated trans people in America are still housed in facilities based on the sex they were assigned at birth, according to a 2020 investigation by NBC News.

Activists say not much has changed. Now, they are working to change policies on both the federal and state level to allow trans prisoners to decide for themselves where they would feel safest being housed – or at least have their voice heard, even if prisons or independent decision-making boards still get to make the final call.

A 2007 study from the University of California, Irvine, found that incarcerated transgender people were 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than a random sample of incarcerated men. Fifty-nine percent of transgender prisoners reported having been sexually assaulted within a California correctional facility compared to just 4.4% of the incarcerated population as a whole.

In 1994, the US Supreme Court ruled on Eighth Amendment grounds that failing to protect trans people in custody is unconstitutional because it qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment.

Activists like Dee Farmer are still fighting to institute national and state-level policies that would require a facility to house transgender, nonbinary or intersex people in the facilities where they feel safest, which would often mean according to their gender identity.

Transgender people are disproportionately impacted by the criminal justice system to begin with, incarcerated at significantly higher rates than other groups.

According to the NTCE’s last national US Transgender Survey conducted in 2015, the rate of incarceration for transgender people was double that of the nation-wide rate of incarceration, and about 10 times higher for Black transgender women.

In many states, being transgender in public can lead to an arrest under so-called “Walking While Trans” laws: anti-loitering codes officially used to target sex workers, which in practice target primarily trans women of color regardless of whether they are sex workers, advocates say.

“We are told to get undressed in front of many men” including both corrections officers and other male prisoners, Salcedo describes, which “automatically creates this sense of fear for many of us and this sense… that it’s ok to sexually harass us and oftentimes sexually assault us.”

Once they are incarcerated, trans people are at significantly higher risk of violence. Trans prisoners are over nine times more likely than the prison average to be assaulted or abused by fellow prisoners, and over five times more likely to be assaulted or abused by facility staff, according to a national survey conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality. According to the 2015 survey, within the year leading up to the survey, almost a quarter of transgender prisoners reported being physically assaulted by other people in custody or staff.

Opponents of housing people in custody according to gender identity argue that men could falsely claim to be transgender so they are housed with women they can then assault.

There is no evidence to support that this happens, while there is overwhelming evidence that trans women in men’s prisons are being sexually assaulted at exponentially higher rates than the general incarcerated population.

“There is no evidence whatsoever to support this argument of false claims. It simply doesn’t happen,” Heng-Lehtinen says. “There are criteria for determining that someone really is transgender… It’s not as simple as simply declaring that you are transgender.”

There is limited data available on whether incarcerated transgender women in women’s facilities are at a lower rate of sexual assault because so few transgender women are currently being incarcerated in women’s facilities. However, formerly incarcerated trans women speaking to CNN shared that they would feel more comfortable being strip searched by guards who are women – standard practice in women’s facilities – and would feel safer with cellmates who are women.

It required officials “use biological sex as the initial determination” for housing placement, but it did not define the term “biological sex” – a controversial term for which there is not one standard set of medical criteria.

“More than that, it’s important that we understand the reasons why trans people are incarcerated: we are criminalized because of who we are. An alternative to that is to provide trans people with the resources and support that we need, rather than… having to resort to survival which gets us put in prison.”

Individual states are also working on legislation requiring their state corrections facilities to house transgender people in the place they feel safest. That includes SB 132 in California, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law in September of 2020, effective January 1. This law requires transgender, non-binary and intersex prisoners to be housed in “a correctional facility designated for men or women based on the individual’s preference,” according to the bill text. It also requires all carceral staff to address prisoners by their correct gender pronouns and to search prisoners in a way consistent with their gender identity.

According to CDCR, out of 1,277 incarcerated individuals that identify as transgender, non-binary or intersex, 272 have requested gender-based housing transfer requests. 265 are from people being housed at male institutions requesting to be transferred to female institutions and seven are from people being housed at female institutions requesting transfer to a male facility.

#USA #TheChubbyCaucasianChristianClosetedConservative #CNN #LGBTQ #Transgender