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Ann Cammett,
"Queer Lockdown: Coming to Terms with the Ongoing Criminalization of LGBTQ Communities"
(page 4 of 9)
LGBTQ Communities: What's Queer Got to Do With It?
In recent years, the most visible contemporary gay rights movements
have concentrated their focus and resources on a limited number of
narrowly defined strategies as the ticket to liberation: namely,
marriage equality and the passage of federal hate crimes legislation.
These strategies have consumed enormous
energy[25] without a deep
cost-benefit analysis of this approach as a community building strategy.
This paper is not designed to be a specific critique of either strategy.
What it does aim to do, however, is to examine the needs of the
disproportionate presence of queer people affected by the criminal
justice system—and for whom survival on the economic margins is the
primary issue.
Structural inequality operates through intersecting oppressions to
make certain people most vulnerable to criminalization. The experience
of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of
coercive governmental systems puts low-income and especially low-income
people of color at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined
are the myriad ways that queer people are drawn into and experience the
carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. The
criminal justice system has a toxic effect on queer communities at every
conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of
queer youth; bias in the judicial system; trauma during incarceration in
prisons and jails; and in disproportionate sentencing, particularly
death penalty cases.
It may not be obvious that incarceration and the challenges flowing
from involvement in the criminal justice system deserve pointed
attention and resources from queer communities. As a political matter,
it is difficult to gain currency on the national stage featuring the
concerns of prisoners—a reviled group with little political capital.
However, a significant number of queer people do find themselves caught
up in the criminal justice apparatus. It is only when we understand the
class dimensions of homophobia and transphobia that it becomes clear why
the criminal justice system presents an overarching issue that the queer
community should come to terms with.
Queer youth frequently experience significant problems in response to
expression of sexual and gender identity that puts them at risk of
criminal justice involvement during their formative years. A recent
report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force entitled "Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Youth: An Epidemic of
Homelessness,"[26]
details the ubiquitous presence of homelessness among queer youth. It is
estimated that in some cities in the U.S., up to 40 percent of homeless
youth are gay, lesbian, bisexual or
transgender.[27] This condition is a
direct result of the hardships associated with coming out as queer
youth. Familial conflict is a significant factor that leads to
homelessness and out-of-home care, and this dislocation contributes to
substance abuse and mental health challenges faced by these young people
that often go unmet. Physical assaults upon disclosure of their
sexuality within the home, at school, and in foster care placements can
lead to young people to believe that they are safer on the
streets.[28]
There, they often must rely on survival through the sex trade and drug
use, and they may be harassed and re-victimized by law
enforcement.[29]
As a result of the loss of family support, queer youth are made
vulnerable to being swept up by the juvenile and later criminal justice
systems.[30]
In this way, non-conforming sexual and gender expression can
be a predictor of potential incarceration and should be of great
concern to anyone who works with young people in the queer community.
Early contact with the criminal justice system sets up the cycle of
incarceration referenced earlier, but in the case of queer youth
provides access to even fewer targeted supportive services. As a result
of a pattern of rejection and alienation, queer youth demonstrate
reluctance to openly discuss their sexual orientation or gender identity
with service providers.[31]
Moreover, the disengagement from family resources in tandem with
criminal justice involvement has serious repercussions for the economic
prospects of queer youth throughout their lives, which have ongoing
impacts on their health and well-being as adults. Consequently, it is
not hard to understand why adults who are queer are disproportionately
at risk of incarceration, especially if they are transgender. As a
group, transgender and gender non-conforming people are
disproportionately poor, homeless, and criminalized. Due to persistent
discrimination in employment and housing, many remain homeless or
marginally housed[32]
and are forced to survive in the underground
economy, including sex work.[33]
In some localities it is possible that
transgender adults are incarcerated at a rate even higher than the
general population of African American
males.[34] In San Francisco, a
1997 study conducted by the City's Department of Public Health found
that 67 percent of male-to-female transgender prisoners (MTFs) and 30
percent of female-to-male transgender prisoners (FTMs) respondents had
been jailed in the past year.[35]
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