Criminal Gets A Double Sentence.

She was convicted of insurance fraud and is serving time for it but in a male prison even though she had surgery.

Transgender woman has asked to be moved from Lillington men’s prison. So far, NC has said no.
Fayetteville Observer
By Josh Shaffer, The News & Observer (TNS)
February 21, 2019

LILLINGTON -- In 2017, Kanautica Zayre-Brown had the last of several surgeries changing from male to female, a final and irreversible step on her long-desired path to becoming a woman.

That same year, she went to prison as a habitual felon, convicted of insurance fraud and obtaining property by false pretenses. Now inmate No. 0618705 at Harnett Correctional, a men’s prison in Lillington, she is believed to be the state’s only post-operative transgender prisoner.

At 37, she both admits and regrets her crimes and has braced herself for a sentence of up to 9 years and 11 months. But she has repeatedly requested, and so far been denied, housing at a women’s prison, sleeping instead on a bunk in a dorm for 38 men.

The state of North Carolina recognizes her by her birth name, Kevin Chestnut, which she legally changed, and as a male. She changes clothes and showers in view of male inmates despite having had her breasts augmented and male genitalia removed, and she said she is regularly issued men’s undergarments.

North Carolina laws requires…

If Zayre-Brown is receiving men’s undergarments, that would appear to violate North Carolina’s trangender policy, adopted in 2018. It allows transgender inmates to request behavior health or medical services if their gender identity causes dysphoria, or distress. It permits them to receive hormone therapy if it was prescribed before prison time, gender-appropriate undergarments and housing “to enhance staff supervision.”

Zayre-Brown, who is from Wilson, said she has received hormones after months of delay but nothing else.

“Underwear, bras, hygiene, shoes,” she said. “Anything the policy allows me to have, they don’t do it.”

This is a case of prison officials believing that they are above the law and she is not alone, other states correctional systems ignore the law.

However, also in 2018, a transgender woman in Illinois won a yearlong legal fight and was transferred to a women’s prison after numerous assaults left her feeling like a “sex slave,” the Chicago Tribune reported.

Here is Connecticut we have a law Public Act No. 18-4 AN ACT CONCERNING THE FAIR TREATMENT OF INCARCERATED PERSONS that states…

Sec. 8. (NEW) (Effective July 1, 2018) Any inmate of a correctional institution, as described in section 18-78 of the general statutes, who has a gender identity that differs from the inmate's assigned sex at birth and has a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, as set forth in the most recent edition of the American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders", shall: (1) Be addressed by correctional staff in a manner that is consistent with the inmate's gender identity, (2) have access to commissary items, clothing, personal property, programming and educational materials that are consistent with the inmate's gender identity, and (3) have the right to be searched by a correctional staff member of the same gender identity, unless the inmate requests otherwise or under exigent circumstances. An inmate who has a birth certificate, passport or driver's license that reflects his or her gender identity or who can meet established standards for obtaining such a document to confirm the inmate's gender identity shall presumptively be placed in a correctional institution with inmates of the gender consistent with the inmate's gender identity. Such presumptive placement may be overcome by a demonstration by the Commissioner of Correction, or the commissioner's designee, that the placement would present significant safety, management or security problems. In making determinations pursuant to this section, the inmate's views with respect to his or her safety shall be given serious consideration by the Commissioner of Correction, or the commissioner's designee.

That is all great, but it will all boil down to will the Department of Corrections enforce the law.