Safety and Solidarity Across Gender Lines: Rethinking Segregation of Transgender People in Detention
Publication year:
2009
| Cataloged on:
Oct. 09, 2012
ANNOTATION: The author argues that “[i]nvoluntary segregation form other people in detention is in reality one of the greatest threats to the safety of TIGNC [transgender, intersex, and gender nonconforming] people in these systems … TIGNC prisoners and other prisoners are at times able to form communities and relationships that resist violence and help people who are targets of violence to survive. The centrality of community-building in creating safety from violence is too often forgotten, not only by detention agencies and courts, but also at times by advocates and scholars. Means for creating community and building positive relationships must be a central consideration in developing ways to reduce violence against TIGNC people in detention” (p. 518). This article is divided into the following parts: understanding violence in detention—most prisoners are no more violent than the public, incarceration itself is violent, systemic factors contribute to staff violence beyond what is legal and to violence among prisoners, dynamics of gender-based violence against transgender individuals in detention; detention as a site of solidarity, resistance, love, and mutual support; restrictions on community building; solitary confinement—how isolation furthers violence and abuse, disproportionate isolation of TIGNC prisoners, inadequacy of legal framework for challenging segregation; and recommendations for improving advocacy, judicial review, policies of detention agencies and facilities, and addressing root causes of violence in detention.
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