News » October 31, 2007

Transgendered Behind Bars

A recent study by the San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project on rape in California prisons found that 59 percent of transgender people reported being sexually assaulted in prison in 2006, compared to 4 percent of the general prison population

By Lewis Wallace

Alexis Giraldo is suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to bring abuses of transgender prisoners to light.

Alexis Giraldo, 30, a male-to-female transsexual was sent to Folsom State Prison, a men’s facility in California, in January 2006 for a misdemeanor and separate parole violation.

While there, she was repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted, she says. According to her testimony, an abusive cellmate considered himself to be her “husband,” and Giraldo made numerous requests to guards and healthcare workers for a transfer to a different facility. She says this yielded no protection. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation claims it moved her to a different unit as soon as physical evidence of abuse was clear. (Giraldo’s injuries included visible signs of strangulation and cuts from a boxcutter.)

“It’s been a nightmare,” Giraldo says. “They are doing people wrong, and they are covering it up.”

A recent study by the San Francisco-based Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project on rape in California prisons found that 59 percent of transgender people reported being sexually assaulted in prison in 2006, compared to 4 percent of the general prison population.

Transgender people become targets in part because, in California, as in most other states, the prohibitive cost of surgeries, therapy and hormones prevents many transgender people from acquiring legal sex changes, which can land people who live as men into women’s facilities, and people who live as women into men’s facilities. While incarcerated, many transgender prisoners have difficulty acquiring hormones, and none have access to surgery while serving time.

In March, Giraldo filed suit in order to bring abuses of transgender prisoners to light, she says. She sued seven employees of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for negligence, infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the state constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

But well into the trial, Judge Ellen Chaitin of San Francisco Superior Court dismissed allegations of negligence and cruel and unusual punishment on the grounds that prison guards do not have the duty to protect inmates, but allowed the claim of intentional inflection of emotional distress to stand.

The dismissal “raises extremely troubling issues under state law, that prison guards have no duty to protect inmates,” says Gregory Walston, Giraldo’s attorney.

Kelani Key, a member of the Trans/Gender Variant in Prison Committee, is no stranger to the kind of violence Giraldo’s trial brought to light.

“I was raped, beat up, ridiculed,” says Key, who has been incarcerated seven times. She says verbal abuse and other forms of discrimination are a problem, as well: “A lot of it comes from the staff. If we complain about anything, they put us in the hole. Either you shut your mouth, or you open your mouth and you go to the hole.”

Key says the Trans in Prison Committee has gotten calls from transgender people around the state describing similar experiences—some even call collect from prison.

Tumeka Godwin, director of the Digital Storytelling Project, which details the experiences of women of color who have been incarcerated, says transgender people who suffer prison abuse have little recourse, and suing is rarely an option considered. “A lot of the women that are incarcerated have no kind of home stability, they can’t find a job and they have to turn to the streets to survive,” she says. Godwin was sexually assaulted in a San Francisco jail and settled a case out of court in 2000.

According to the Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project, 75 percent of transgender people in San Francisco are without full-time employment. Sixty-five percent of male-to-female (MtF) transgender people have spent time in prison or jail, as well as 29 percent of people who identify as female-to-male (FtM)—rates far above that of the general population.

On Aug. 2, Giraldo’s trial ended with a hung jury, but she has already filed an appeal. She says she will bring back allegations of negligence and cruel and unusual punishment.

“Nobody should go through that,” she says, “regardless of what you’ve done. I’m not the first, and if things don’t change, I won’t be the last. I’m doing this so people can know what’s going on in there.”

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• Reader Comments

  The article does not say, but i assume that Alexis is a pre-op tranny (that is, he still has his penis, but may or may not have boobs).

  “I was raped, beat up, ridiculed,” says Key, who has been incarcerated seven times.”

  While no one should have to suffer such abuse, one might wonder why s/he was arrested at least 7 times?

  “75 percent of transgender people in San Francisco are without full-time employment. “

  One might think that these individuals are desperately in need of counseling, and that their gender confusion is merely one of many symptoms. Bets are that the vast majority of these individuals were abused as children. . .

  While one might hope that society would protect the very least of us we all know that this is not really so, and never has been (and, unfortunately, is not likely to ever be, at least in the foreseeable future). Nonetheless, it is foolish for these people to continue to break laws and get themselves incarcerated. . .

  Posted by wolf on Oct 31, 2007 at 7:56 PM

  Shorter wolf.

  It’s all her fault because the State cannot be expected to carry out its most fundamental role-protect people rfom violence and assault, especially when a person is incarcerated under the direct control of the State!

  Really, I have seen some really stupid ‘blame the victim’ posts in my time, but this takes the cake. In wolf’s view, if you do the crime, you not only do the time, but you should expect to be raped and assaulted as well. This is a perfect example of the inability of right wing reactionaries to understanbd the most basic precepts of liberal societies and the role of the rule of law in maintaining some semblance of civilisation. What a shocker, but how revealing.

  Posted by Jane Doe on Nov 1, 2007 at 6:26 AM

  HI Miss Doe -Yes you really have me pegged. In fact, i believe that the prison system should require rape, abuse and torture at the very minimum. Even if the person is innocent and only accused. In fact we should put all trannys to death, gays too and while we are at it, hetros as well. Needless to say, i am so very impressed with your *amazing* grasp of the English language, you must be a teacher (and thus should also be incarcerated and abused),

  Ha ha ha ho ha ho ho ho!!!!

  Posted by wolf on Nov 1, 2007 at 3:09 PM

  I must agree with wolf. This is rather simple in my eyes. If s/he has male parts s/he is a male. therefore belongs in a male prison. If s/he has female part s/he is a female, and belongs in a female prison. It is their right to receive the operations necessary to become of the opposite sex. Just as much their right to do so as it is everyone else’s right to have those who break the law placed into prisons and deal with the punishments of their law breaking.

  This person’s life outside of prison must of had some frowning upon what they were doing and they were probably being judged everyday by others. Well, this is reality and if they were facing some punishment by others with differing views then they should expect heightened punishment from those who disagree with what they are doing.

  Though I have never dealt with ‘hard time’ I must imagine this isn’t the first case of prison sex, and certainly will not be the last. It seems to be a matter of a typical case with not so ordinary variables. There should be something done to lower prison sex in general; Not just for those who have to deal with how they are a sex of their own.

  Posted by mluciano1 on Nov 3, 2007 at 7:41 PM

  Each of you seem to be discussing “transgendered” in terms of sex and not gender; sex is the biological designation whereas gender is defined as a societal construct.

  Part of what this article, and the various organizations mentioned therein, addresses is that the prison system does not have a way to acceptably categorize people whose biological sex and pseudo-psychological gender do not fall into the same category without risking severe emotional and physical abuses.

  I am also worried by the designation transgenderedness as “gender confusion.”  There is a subtextual assumption in that terminology that transgendered peoples cannot be right in identifying their gender differently than their biological sex.  Why is this confusion?  The transgendered people that I know, speakers that I’ve heard, and performers that I’ve listened to refer to it as gender CLARITY rather than gender confusion; it is what better suits their individual personalities.  And many of them were not abused as children—at least not until they came out as transgendered.

  Implying that transgenered identities are just “confused” as a result of childhood abuse is incredibly short sighted and reeks of a subconscious ignorance that I see as the underlying problem in this article; yes, prison abuses are a problem across the board, but Giraldo’s legal case is one specifically concerning the transgendered and is a wonderful opportunity to explore the cultural prejudice against that which the average member of mainstream society does not readily understand or accept.

  I hope we can all take this article up on the challenge it presents us: to reevaluate our assumptions about transgendered peoples and their treatment within our society.

  Posted by siameseamazon on Nov 3, 2007 at 8:42 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 8 posts.

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