Doing Hard Time

Can you imagine being in a supermax prison not for what you did, but for who you are. In the penal system many trans-people find themselves in a supermax prison or in solitary confinement, only being let out of their cell for one hour a day. They are put in supermax prisons or solitary confinement that is usually reserved for harden criminals or as punishment because the correction officials do not want to bother with dealing with trans-prisoners.

Clinic Can't Dodge Suit by Transgender Addict
Courthouse News Service
By Adam Klasfeld
August 2, 2011

MANHATTAN (CN) - The Phoenix House drug rehabilitation center must stand trial against a transgender client who says she has to spend 2 1/2 years in a supermax, all-male prison because the program kicked her out, a federal judge ruled.
Sabire Wilson was arrested for drug possession in March 2008 and later accepted a plea agreement to enter a drug-treatment program rather than face prison time. She said that she selected Phoenix House because it represented itself as gay- and lesbian-friendly, and she told the admissions counselor that she was biologically male.
The counselor allegedly told Wilson she could sign up for the Brooklyn branch of the Phoenix House, as long as she used male dormitories and bathrooms. Wilson agreed on the condition that staff let her dress and appear female.
[…]
After impressing counselors with her progress, Wilson said they made her a resident structure senior coordinator.

She was in a women’s counseling group when some of the women complained about her being there and that was when her problems began, the Phoenix House director Sydney Hargrove kicked her out of the Phoenix House even though...

Thirty-eight men and women in her unit eventually signed a petition calling Wilson a "valued member of this unit," who has "earned the respect of the community."

She is currently severing the rest of her sentence at Southport Correctional Facility, a supermax, all-male prison in Pine City, N.Y.

This is not the only case where trans-prisoners are punished just because they are transgender. In Virginia a trans-woman was placed in solitary confinement just because of who she is, not what she had done.

What is left: solitary confinement
Women In and Beyond the Global
Jan 8th, 2010
By admin.

Maria Benita Santamaria is a 35 year old transgender woman. In June 2009, she was arrested in northern Virginia and charged with possession of methamphetamine. In August she pleaded guilty. She was sent to Central Virginia Regional Jail, a men’s prison. The prison placed her in solitary confinement, for “her own protection”. At the end of December, a U.S. District Judge ordered her removed to a federal prison with treatment facilities and counseling for transgender prisoners. When the holiday seasons intruded, the judge had Santamaria placed in a medical wing until after the end of the festive season. After six months in solitary, what is left?

Update: August 5, 2011

ACLU Press Release

Federal Court Upholds Transgender People’s Right to Access Medical Treatment in Prison

CHICAGO – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit today upheld the right of transgender people to receive medical care while they are incarcerated. The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Wisconsin and Lambda Legal had challenged a Wisconsin law that prohibited prison doctors from prescribing hormone treatment or sex reassignment surgery to transgender inmates.

“This was a discriminatory law that cruelly singled out transgender people by denying them – and only them – the medical care they need,” said John Knight, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project. “Too often the medical needs of transgender persons are not treated as the serious health issues that they are. We are glad that the appeals court has found that medical professionals, not the Wisconsin legislature, should make medical decisions for inmates.”