It can\u2019t be easy to be trans anywhere in modern society. So it\u2019s got to be far worse for trans people in Illinois prisons.<\/p>\n
But those who fit into that group have found a champion, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Rosenstengel.<\/p>\n
The federal judge who presides in the Southern District of Illinois recently ordered the state prison system to revamp its procedures dealing with trans people, established a Jan. 22 deadline for a report on progress and singled out three prison officials for potential sanctions.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Like an angry schoolmarm cracking down on disobedient students, Rosenstengel gave Department of Corrections officials John Baldwin, Steve Meeds and Melvin Hinton an extra homework assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court notes that no (corrections) representative attended any portion of the two-day preliminary injunction hearing. Because the court is concerned that IDOC is not taking plaintiffs\u2019 allegations in this lawsuit seriously, the court orders each named defendant shall read the transcript of the evidentiary hearing, held on July 31-Aug. 1, and certify to the court, on or before Jan. 2, 2020, that he has done so.\u201d<\/p>\n
It remains to be seen how this legal battle will play out, although Gov. J.B. Pritzker\u2019s corrections department is clearly on the defensive.<\/p>\n
State officials have made no public comments on the judge\u2019s order. They also have not responded to basic questions on the extent of the problem.<\/p>\n
For example, how many transgender inmates are there among the 43,000-plus in state prisons? The corrections department\u2019s \u201ctransgender committee\u201d meets each month to review \u201capproximately 20 cases\u201d and go \u201cover treatment plans and inmate requests.\u201d<\/p>\n
But is 20 the extent of the issue? Or are there more?<\/p>\n
The gulf between the corrections department and the six plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union is vast.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit provides six female names for the plaintiffs. But the department\u2019s inmate locator shows no inmates identified by those names in the suit.<\/p>\n
Because five of the six have common last names, it\u2019s impossible to identify their location in the prison system. Only one of them \u2014 Sora Kuykendall \u2014 is potentially identifiable because there are only two Kuykendalls in the state prison system.<\/p>\n
The ACLU is alleging that transgender inmates suffer from a variety of mental and physical disabilities, many of which stem from gender dysphoria. The ACLU is seeking a variety of policy and medical changes, including hormone therapy for transgender inmates not already receiving it, and sex-reassignment surgery.<\/p>\n
Short of that, they want transgender inmates held in facilities consistent with their sexual identity, to be searched by guards whose gender matches theirs, access to products and clothing consistent with their gender, and the required use of their preferred pronouns by guards.<\/p>\n
The litigation is based on the trans inmates\u2019 constitutional claim that the state\u2019s prison system is \u201cindifferent\u201d to their health concerns and, as a consequence, must be compelled by the court to make changes.<\/p>\n
The issue was brought to the fore last year when a transgender inmate, Strawberry Hampton, sought a transfer to a women\u2019s prison where she expected to be treated better.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Hampton, who has since been released, later won her transfer.<\/p>\n
Rosenstengel\u2019s opinion, however, indicated that trans women are not \u201cwell received\u201d by inmates at women\u2019s prisons.<\/p>\n
One of the plaintiffs \u2014 Janiah Monroe \u2014 has been an inmate at a women\u2019s prison. Authorities said she subsequently refused to take her prescribed hormones and sexually pursued other female inmates.<\/p>\n
While the ACLU maintains that gender dysphoria is the problem that must be addressed to resolve the trans inmates\u2019 issues, Dr. Lawrence Jeckel, a Champaign psychiatrist, expressed skepticism of that view.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not the case if you look at it in depth. These are very complicated, often tortured individuals,\u201d Jeckel said.<\/p>\n
He said they \u201chave a belief they\u2019re the wrong sex\u201d and are often convinced that \u201csurgery and changing will make them feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the wish, and that\u2019s the hope,\u201d said Jeckel, indicating that it\u2019s not necessarily the result.<\/p>\n
The plaintiffs testified to a long list of woes during the two-day hearing, detailing years of mental-health problems, including schizophrenia and depression, suicide attempts and self-mutilation, and frustration about being groped by fellow inmates and sometimes guards.<\/p>\n
The judge was clearly sympathetic to their plight, even adopting some of the language invoked by trans advocates. For example, in her opinion, Rosenstengel referred to plaintiffs being \u201cassigned\u201d genders at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3806,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1277,166,564,53],"class_list":["post-3805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sex-reassignment","tag-sex-reassignment-2","tag-surgery","tag-transgender","tag-treatment"],"yoast_head":"\n
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