Transgender Prisoners
All prisoners have the right to feel secure and not abused. In the prison system, security and respect can be threatened in lots of ways. Guards assert their authority most harshly on the weakest, not those who are well supported by their mates.
In men’s jails there are many vulnerable minorities – those who are older, younger, gay, or effeminate, and those who have a disability are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Likewise in women’s prisons. Transgender prisoners can get the worst of all.
If such groups are housed, for their own safety, in specialised units, there is a risk that segregation may result in further marginalisation or rendering them at further risk of ill-treatment. Such prisoners, even if segregated, should have the same access to services and programs as other prisoners. In the case of transgender prisoners, the line between prisoner safety and transphobic discrimination is easily blurred by prison authorities, and prison officials can sometimes conceal their discriminatory behaviour, by claiming they are acting for prisoners’ protection.
All people, including those in prison, are free to claim whatever identity they like, just as in the general community.
The majority of transgender prisoners are male-to-female (M2F) and are housed in women’s jails unless ‘it is determined through classification and placement that the person should more appropriately be placed in a correctional centre of their biological sex [ie men’s jails]’. Link. This is the case in NSW and the situation is similar elsewhere.
Complaints lodged by transgender prisoners, dealt with internally, may often be only responded to with arrogant justifications for departmental actions. Transgender prisoners need their own specialist support. Medical treatment should be provided by staff adequately qualified to deal with this specialised area. Staff should treat transgender prisoners with respect, and mistreatment by other inmates (eg sexual victimisation, verbal harassment) should be effectively dealt with.
M2F transgender prisoners are entitled to dress in women’s clothing and to obtain personal care items, cosmetics, clothing, and underwear through the buy-up system in the same way that women prisoners can.
Attempts to ensure the safety and dignity of M2F transgender prisoners should not have the effect of making prison more destructive for women. Some M2F transgender prisoners haven’t undergone ‘sex change’ surgery and still have their penis. Women prisoners, like other women in today’s society, have grown up in a patriarchal context that has taught them to be on stress-alert in the presence of men.
The overwhelming majority of women prisoners have in fact experienced pre-incarceration violence and/or sexual abuse by men. The presence of M2F transgender prisoners in a women’s jail could disturb others.
All people in prison are legally entitled to feel and be safe wherever they are locked up. The right to freedom of association is extremely important in enclosed common spaces, whether cells or yards. Tension is unnecessary where prisoners can meet, talk and make choices about their placement. Friends and family should have the entitlement to live together and support each other.
Women prisoners should be entitled to have private spaces and raise objections without penalty about others whom they perceive as males in their space, and have that concern respected. Women prisoners should not have male guards breach their privacy either.
9th April 2025