Gender Identity and Incarceration
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I recently caught up with an old penpal who lives in West Virginia and recently was released from a low-security prison there. He told me that his closest friend in the prison was a trans woman, and that he often had to stick up for her when other inmates sexually harassed her.
Being that Orange is the New Black is my favourite series of all time, I was quite shocked to hear that not all states separate inmates by gender identity and some rather do it by assigned sex at birth.
This made me think about why prisoners are separated by gender at all in the first place and that’s why I wanna open up the topic for discussion.
I believe that it is because of the patriarchy setting up feminine-identifying people up as the second-class citizens, and therefore to prevent more violence behind bars, lawmakers decided to separate males and females. -
This issue was in the local news recently. Ontario and Quebec (and possibly other provinces) house inmates based on their sex. Trans inmates are categorized based on whether they've undergone bottom surgery, which is already a somewhat arbitrary line. Recently there's a woman who's met that criteria and Ontario corrections have been challenging her transfer request.
I know the history of segregated women's prisons are intertwined with asylums, which were often used to imprison women for all manner of things
I don't know if women's prisons were introduced before the closure of most asylums, but I think they were.I'm glad your friend got out. I hope life on the outside is kind to him
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