Transgender inmate sues over prison rape

July 20, 2007

Adapted from the Associated Press

An inmate was born as a man and takes hormones to feminize her appearance, a fact she says prison officials didn’t care about even as her male cellmate repeatedly raped and beat her.

The transgender inmate is suing the state prison system and several guards over the state’s policy of assigning inmates like her to men’s or women’s prisons depending on whether they have had a sex change.

“Prisons are violent places, and male prisons are especially violent places,” said a lawyer who took the case for free and asked a jury this week for unspecified damages. “You take that boiling cauldron and you put one woman in there—which is exactly what happened here—and it’s like throwing a fresh piece of meat into a lion’s cage.”

The 30-year-old claims prison guards ignored her complaints and returned her to the same cell until she was assaulted again, placed in protective custody, then moved to another facility.

She is suing the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for emotional distress and violating her constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. She has asked a superior court judge to order prison officials to come up with a new system for housing transgender inmates.

Several counties in the 30-year-old’s state of residence have created separate units specifically for transgender prisoners. But, like other states and the federal Bureau of Prisons, this state assigns inmates to prisons based on their genitalia rather than physical appearance.

Biological men who dress and act like women but have not had sex reassignment surgery can be assigned to a psychiatric prison like the one to which the 30-year-old was eventually transferred or to the general population of a regular men’s prison.

Briefs filed by the state argue that she initially was in a consensual sexual relationship with her cellmate in violation of prison policy, did not report specific rape claims, and refused offers to be moved to a different cell. Once she made it clear her cellmate was sexually assaulting her and prison staff found strangulation marks on her neck, she was removed to protective custody, the state maintains.

“Plaintiff alleges that he informed prison staff on a number of occasions about these events. However, the documentation maintained by prison personnel—including some of the defendants in this case—does not bear out these assertions,” the state’s brief states.

A retired guard and supervisor testified as an expert witness, saying that in her opinion officials failed to adequately investigate the prisoner’s concerns and assure her safety.

“There are some warning signs,” the retired guard said. “When an inmate says, ‘I am getting pressured for sex,’ it means it is already happened or it is imminent he will have to provide nonconsensual sex to another inmate.”

The 30-year-old was sent to prison for shoplifting and a parole violation in last year and spent three months there before she was transferred to the medical prison. She was paroled this month and plans to testify.

Her former cellmate, who is serving a sentence for armed robbery, is also scheduled to testify in the trial.