In Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, editors Eric A. All of these reasons have contributed to the lack of trans visibility among the prison population, which has led to their continued abuse.Īs LGBTA activists have worked to increase awareness of transpeople in the mainstream population in order to end discrimination against them in housing and employment, incarcerated transpeople often remain overlooked due to their criminal status and race. And, as queer people traditionally receive the worst treatment in prison, a certain percentage of transpeople may keep quiet about their true identities. As the use of aliases by prison inmates is considered a violation of security, prison guards will refuse to call transpeople by their desired names or appropriate forms of address. Lack of awareness on the part of prison officials and staff also leads to trans invisibility in the prison system, as most corrections personnel cannot distinguish between transpeople and queer cisgendered people. For this reason, those who maintain databases containing information about the prisoners housed in different facilities do not bother to record inmate sex or gender. The Prison Industrial Complex of the United States is the last bastion of unforgiving gender segregation-one’s natural genitalia determines their prison destination. In American prisons today, the exact number of incarcerated transpeople remains unknown.

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex

Eric stanley captive genders