This past week, a UK transgender woman incarcerated in a men’s prison in Bath took her life. The warning signs from Vicky Thompson were far from subtle: she had repeatedly told family, friends, and prison officials that she would kill herself were she to find herself in a men’s prison. Yet those warnings went unheeded,
It feels like every week, we are faced with new accounts of abuse against transgender inmates by prison staff. So it’s with guarded optimism we view a ruling handed down last week that represents a small victory. This past summer, a Maryland judge agreed that the treatment constituted a violation of the Prison Rape Elimination
I am a huge supporter of the struggles of transgender people in prison, especially after a recent incident with a prisoner in Virginia. That’s why I was so happy to contribute this article in Vice: http://www.vice.com/read/the-uphill-battle-to-make-prison-safer-for-trans-women If you have a chance to read it, we highly recommend it.
While the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons has done a great job of promoting itself as the global leader in the humane treatment of prisoners, the reality is that the BOP is now operating at 143 percent of capacity, and its ability to deliver services to the 215,470 men, women, and children in its
At the start of June, pink flyers announcing LGBT Month started appearing around FCI Petersburg, a medium-security federal prison in Petersburg, Virginia, where I am incarcerated. The fliers, along with many colorful postings in the Education Department, explained what LGBT means: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. They profiled famous and successful LGBT persons and generally
By Derek Gilna
A lawsuit filed by a transgender federal prisoner in Massachusetts has resulted in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) making appropriate medical care available “to [prisoners] who believe they are the wrong gender,” according to a May 31, 2011 memo issued to all BOP wardens. Previous BOP policy limited treatment of transgender prisoners to medical care that maintained them “at the level of [gender] change which existed when they were incarcerated.”
The prisoner who filed suit, Vanessa Adams, whose legal name is Nicholas Adams, had been diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in 2005 by medical professionals at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners (USMCFP) in Springfield, Missouri.
Adams sought declaratory and injunctive relief under 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 2202.
Her lawsuit noted that GID is a “recognized diagnosable and treatable medical condition listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR).” Medically appropriate GID treatment options include providing patients with 1) hormones of the desired gender; 2) the “real life experience,” i.e. living full-time as the new gender; and 3) surgery to change the patient’s sex characteristics – often collectively referred to as “triadic therapy.”
According to her complaint, Adams “believed she was assigned the wrong gender,” which caused her “much emotional turmoil.” Those feelings intensified during her incarceration; she amputated her penis and attempted to castrate herself.
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Learn about each prison’s location, security level, educational and recreational offerings, and much more.
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