Earlier in 2018, Taliyah Murphy received a letter informing her of the impending class action lawsuit brought on behalf of transgender women like her who were housed in Colorado men’s prisons. It inspired her.
Murphy and other transgender women in Colorado had endured years of sexual assault and frequently violent treatment from coworkers and other inmates. According to the petition, they were denied requests for safer accommodation options and health care, such as surgery, for gender dysphoria, an emotional distress caused by the disparity between the sex that some trans people are born with and their gender identity.
Murphy, who was released from prison in 2020, said, “We were targets for victimization, whether it was physical rape, extortion, or anything else.” She continued, “The officers just looked the other way most of the time.”
According to the case’s lawyers, Colorado would become the first state to provide its own dedicated housing unit under a formal legal agreement known as the consent decree, which is anticipated to be finalized by early March. According to federal law, such models are not permitted unless court-ordered. The Colorado Department of Corrections would be required to pay a $2.15 million settlement to affected trans women, update its protocols and staff training, enhance medical and mental health care, control cross-gender searches by correctional officers, and require corrections personnel to use proper names and pronouns for trans women inmates, according to the schedule outlined in the arrangement, which received preliminary approval last fall.
After granting an extension to allow for the notification of the settlement to more imprisoned people, a state judge heard on the consent decree on January 4 and is anticipated to do so by early March. Nearly 400 trans women who are now or have been imprisoned are eligible to receive benefits.
Despite federal law stating that the security concerns of transgender people should be taken into account when deciding placement, housing assignments in American prisons are almost entirely based on an individual’s anatomy. This is due to the fact that they are much more likely than prisoners who are not transgender to experience sexual or physical abuse while jailed.
Paula Greisen, a civil rights attorney who filed the class-action petition in 2019 alongside the California-based Transgender Law Center, said, “It’s like putting a target on their back.”
With 35% of transgender inmates surveyed reporting having been assaulted in the previous 12 months, the U.S. Department of Justice discovered in 2014 that transgender people who are incarcerated are much more likely to experience sexual assault behind bars from staff members and other prisoners. According to a 2007 study of trans people in California prisons, 59% of them reported experiencing sexual assault while incarcerated, which is 13 times higher than the rate for other prisoners.
Colorado’s situation is one of many lawsuits being filed across the nation to increase access to gender-affirming care and safety for trans people who are incarcerated. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a historic 1994 case that prison administrators’ “deliberate indifference” to the safety concerns of prisoners violates the Eighth Amendment’s “cruel and unusual punishments” clause. Since then, trans people who are incarcerated in Washington, Georgia, California, and Idaho have prevailed in court cases against jail officials.
While a few states, including Colorado, have written guidelines addressing gender-affirming treatment and surgeries, the consent order hopes to address the problem of overwhelming barriers to care access. Beginning in 2017, California became the first state to implement policies on gender-affirming medical care in prisons. A three-judge panel decided in 2019 that Idaho must perform surgery that officials had formerly denied. According to a Department of Corrections director, one Colorado prisoner underwent gender-affirming surgery.
According to Matthew Murphy, an associate professor of medicine and cognitive science at Brown University and a doctor who supervises gender-affirming medical care for the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, the Constitution mandates that jails and prisons offer the same level of care as the general public. Taliyah and Matthew are not related.
There is a growing law, he said, with Medicaid and private plans increasingly covering gender-affirming care.
According to a Department of Corrections director, there were 148 transgender people detained in Colorado prisons as of December, with nine of them residing in women’s facilities. Trans people were only housed with men prior to 2018. Trans men, nonbinary people, and transgender people are not included in the class-action lawsuit; only trans women are covered.
A young transgender woman who had formerly been housed with women in a juvenile facility was transferred to an adult women’s prison and brutally raped there, prompting the filing of the complaint. Her many safety-related calls to be housed with different people had been turned down. Greisen immediately came across numerous other transgender women who had experienced similar assault after taking on the person’s case. She made calls to the governor’s office and the Colorado attorney general, but nothing changed, so she decided to file the class action.
“It’s like trying to turn the Titanic around,” says the Department of Corrections
in every state. There’s a ton of bureaucracy, Greisen said. “You frequently need to file a lawsuit to get their attention.”
An “informed consent unit” is suggested by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the top professional organization that sets standards for the health care of people with gender dysphoria. This model enables patients to seek gender-affirming care, including surgery, without having to go through extensive emotional counseling.
However, the prison system in Colorado, like many others across the nation, doesn’t follow those guidelines. Trans people must get numerous recommendation letters from medical and mental health professionals in order to be considered for transition-related surgery, according to recent corrections department policies. According to Matthew Murphy, prisons frequently provide gender-affirming care “on paper,” but they lack skilled providers, making it difficult to obtain the treatment.
Taliyah Murphy, who underwent gender-affirming surgery while incarcerated, experienced this. According to the lawsuit, Murphy was found guilty of an incident with her abusive boyfriend and sentenced to prison in 2009. 2013 saw a reduction in her sentence, she claimed.
Finally, a physician in the corrections department recommended surgery to treat her gender dysphoria in 2019. The complaint, however, halted the procedure after she was informed that her other health professionals lacked the necessary training to assess her. She only underwent surgical care following her release from prison in 2020, according to her.
Gender dysphoria, if left untreated, can lead to depression, anxiety, thoughts of self-harm, and suicidality, all of which currently have a disproportionately negative impact on trans people due to the stigma, social stressors they deal with. Matthew Murphy stated that receiving gender-affirming medical care, whether it be health, procedural, or surgical, typically resolves or at least improves those issues.
However, he claimed that prison techniques are lagging behind in terms of care, and a nationwide shortage of gender-affirming care services and surgeons makes matters worse.
“People are therefore compelled to appear in court,” he said.
To better serve the unique needs and improve safety for transgender women incarcerated in Colorado, the consent decree may establish two new volunteer accommodation options.
On the grounds of the women’s Gold Correctional Facility will be a dedicated 100-bed trans unit, whose construction is already underway. The 44-bed connectivity system specified in the consent decree will house those who have been granted permission to move to the women’s prison for a few months.
According to Shawn Meerkamper, senior staff attorney for the Transgender Law Center, who worked on the situation, that transition period may be crucial for both the transgender women who are likely to leave distressing situations in the men’s prisons and the transgender women currently housed in those facilities.
“It can be a sink-or-swim situation,” Meerkamper continued, “We have seen in other areas when people are simply dropped off in genuinely new environments.”
According to the agreement, a committee made up of custody administrators, medical and psychiatric professionals with training in gender-affirming care, and others would decide eligibility for the programs case by case. However, regardless of selection, Colorado’s corrections office would still be required by law to give trans women access to quality mental and physical health care.
“If that’s not what they want, Trans women shouldn’t be made to go to the trans unit or to a women’s prison,” according to Meerkamper. “And for refusing to go, they may be punished or retaliated against.”
The Department of Corrections has hired a gender-affirming care consultant and an independent health professional from Denver Health to assist in managing requests for housing assignments and medical consultations in response to the complaint.
Taliyah Murphy hopes that the new housing units and improved access to gender-affirming treatment may enable trans people who are incarcerated to focus more on treatment and life planning outside of prison walls rather than safety and survival.
Murphy, who is now a small-business owner in Colorado Springs and is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in finance and accounting, said, “We want them to come out better off than they came in and get the care they need.” “That is the main focus of this.”
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