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… return to article
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Reader Comments (8)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe 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 1:56 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 12:26 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 9:09 AM 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 1:41 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 2:42 PM I must respect your evaluation of our evaluations due to two reasons.
1. You seem very well in tune with the ideas of gender clarity. 2.
2. I see what you mean with our interpretations of this article. I may have lost sight a bit of how in mentality Giraldo is a woman. Whether or not his/her body shows this.
In prison though maybe the term we are using is transsexual instead of transgendered. Since in prison and in this article it’d be more around the idea of sex and less of gender. This article seems more to discuss his sexual assault and less his gender assault. I’d like to leave this to be around his rights as a human to avoid sexual assault. In no way do I find his rights as a woman or man to be offended except in the idea of what prison he belongs in. I see this more in their rights as a men [mental] being offended by fellow prisoners.
Maybe there should be some separation in the prison between those who are clarified as men and clarified as woman. Not certain how this could be done, but it’s something neat to ponder.
I’d like to see someone respond back and add layers to this idea.
Posted by mluciano1 on Nov 3, 2007 at 3:21 PM Thanks for nodding in the direction of the discrepancies between her** mentality and her body-- just such acknowledgment feels like a pivotal point in being more sympathetic toward transgendered peoples.
(**In the transgender-friendly community, the proper pronoun is the one by which the individual self identifies-- male in FtM or female in MtF)
All humans, of course, have a right to not be victims of sexual assault; this is a major problem within the prison system for everyone, but I feel like it is augmented in the case of transgendered persons by the lack of acceptance of transitional/transitioned identities.
Your idea that there be a distinct parts of prisons for those whose gender and sex do not align seems productive on many levels. However, I think that making hormone supplements available is also important (things such as asthma medication and insulin are allowed-- why not hormones?).
There is also the problem of falling down a rabbit hole with this kind of solution; what happens to homosexuals within prisons? Are they cordoned off, too? Why not use the same to separate people based on race or age?
Not to be too tongue-in-cheek :)
I feel like the first step should be, as it is in solving so many problems, working toward acceptance of difference. Having mutual respect between people from different groups leads to fewer assaults across the board and, in this case, a few other adjustments to the mentality of the prison system.
Posted by siameseamazon on Nov 3, 2007 at 4:22 PM Yes most of the problems for the FtM and MtFs are that they need to socially accepted, but discussing their treatment as a sexual prey in prison is much more of a problem than just the cultural shock they bring, though their solution may bring about many more changes in prison.
I feel their hormones should be available in most cases, and they should deserve some sorts of treatment towards their transgendered lifestyle, and their incessant struggle for a life they deserve. You can’t just alter/end their hormone intake if they have already begun to undergo their changes. And, yes homosexuals do need something differing.
It is quite possible that the problems in the system are just that, problems. Maybe the solution is only some kind of a compromise. Not everyone is able to win in this situation; unless of course there is some beautiful answer I’m just skipping past without acknowledging. We can’t have transgender persons being treated like Folsom Don Juans. It’s absurd to allow this to continue when they are in mind woman. We can certainly segregate by gender, but yes how far can we take this? There are several problems with the prison system.
I must believe that a possibility is that our system doesn’t need changes quite as much as it needs complete restructuring. There are seemingly so many problems that we should add it to the list of flawed systems.
The rabbit hole is the last place I want this to go with all these concentration prisons. If we had a prison of concentrated transgenders we’d still have to deal with prison rapes, possibly to an equal or higher degree. I know I am lacking a solution to this at the moment, and that this is not something figured over a discussion board. This is going to be a problem discussed and debated before there is some absolute resolute; there may never be a resolution to transgender imprisonment. We can see with time, and possibly with provoking change. I know in my youth I’m a strong advocate of many things in my debates in my classes. I plan to continue this, especially, when something as interesting , dealing with human rights, comes up to resolve.
Maybe the problem is the solution? Maybe where we are is the best we can get it? I refuse to settle at current conditions, provoking such articles, as a pinnacle for the prison system. Where is the equilibrium of this argument? When will the victor be all parties? Is that possible? Or all parties being in a compromise, therefore making all victors or all losers in the struggle?
Posted by mluciano1 on Nov 3, 2007 at 5:20 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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