Ann Cammett, "Queer Lockdown: Coming to Terms with the Ongoing Criminalization of LGBTQ Communities"
(page 5 of 9)

The threat of sexual abuse and violence are horrible realities for all people living in jails and prison. Research shows that prisoners who are gay, lesbian, or transgender—or perceived to be—are at a higher risk for abuse and trauma in prison, simply because they are queer. A report issued in 2001 by Human Rights Watch, No Escape: Male Rape in U.S. Prisons,[36] charges that state authorities are responsible for widespread prisoner-on-prisoner sexual abuse in U.S. men's prisons.[37] Human Rights Watch warns that by failing to implement reasonable measures to prevent and punish rape—and, indeed, in many cases, taking actions that make sexual victimization likely—state authorities permit this physically and psychologically devastating abuse to occur.[38]

Apart from being targeted for abuse, transgender prisoners face discrimination, harassment, and abuse above and beyond that of the non-trans population. The findings in No Escape indicate that certain prisoners are targeted for sexual exploitation the moment they enter a correctional facility: their age, looks, sexual orientation, gender expression, and other characteristics mark them as candidates for abuse.[39] In 2007, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) issued, "It's War in Here: A Report on the Treatment of Transgender and Intersex People in New York State Men's Prisons."[40] In addition to illustrating the cycles of poverty and discrimination that result in the criminalization of transgendered people in New York State prisons,[41] the report documents the widespread harassment, physical and sexual abuse, discrimination, and violence that transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming people face inside state custody.

Even for those willing to come forward, it is surprisingly difficult for an incarcerated individual to prove rape in prison. Consider the story of Roderick Johnson, a Navy veteran and gay man incarcerated in Texas for parole violations stemming from non-violent crimes. Johnson was given the female name of "Coco" and forced into sexual slavery and raped repeatedly for a period of 18 months by prison gangs in the Allred Unit, a Texas prison.[42] Despite begging officials seven times in writing to move him to protective housing, they refused, saying that his claims could not be corroborated. Officials even suggested that because he was gay he might be enjoying the rapes.[43]

Mr. Johnson filed suit in Federal Court in Texas claiming "deliberate indifference" to his health and safety under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.[44] Despite testimony from prison gang members corroborating the abuse, a Texas jury refused to hold six prison officials accountable. A juror noted that he didn't think there was enough evidence of the assaults, stating that "[h]e probably was raped, but he never came out with a rape test."[45] The Johnson case suggests that the deliberate indifference standard[46] will be difficult to meet for plaintiffs, especially those at ongoing risk while incarcerated. Queer and transgender prisoners are singled out for repeated sexual abuse within a dehumanizing system that relies on power and control to maintain order within its walls.

Correctional facilities have no clear standards for housing prisoners that are transgender, and the failure to create a thoughtful and uniform accommodation standard contributes to the harsh conditions that they endure. U.S. correctional facilities are sex-segregated, and they house prisoners according to their birth-assigned sex or genitalia.[47] Transgender women who live and identify as women but were identified as male at birth are generally placed in men's facilities, where they are frequent and visible targets for discrimination and violence, and are subject to daily refusals by correctional officers and other prisoners to recognize their gender identity.[48] Male-to-female transgender prisoners (MTFs) rapidly become the targets of frequent sexual abuse.[49]

As for female-to-male transgender people [FTMs], "while they don't face the same type of violence [from fellow prisoners], they face a lot of oppression on the part of guards," explains Judy Greenspan, cofounder of the Trans/Gender Variant in Prison Committee (TIP). "When they're strip-searched, many FTMs who have had their breasts removed or take hormones are put on display. It's psychological brutality. . . . They're demonized."[50]

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