Sentenced to rape

[Hazumu]

BY MEGHANN MYERS
Wednesday December 24, 2008

Inherent flaws in our social institutions result in a disproportionate number of LGBT prisoners. Discrimination in employment, housing, and healthcare often force members of the LGBT community, particularly transgender individuals, to turn to the street economy to support themselves. A survey by the Transgender Law Center found that fewer than half of transgender adults held a full-time job, and one in five have experienced homelessness since becoming transgender (see "Transjobless," 3/15/06). These factors greatly increase the instance of criminal activity in the LGBT community. The Center for Health Justice reports that more than two-thirds of male-to-female transgender San Franciscans have been incarcerated; in six other major urban areas, one in four gay men had been incarcerated.

Once LGBT individuals enter the California prison system, says Linda McFarlane, deputy executive director of Just Detention International, they are 15 times more likely to experience sexual assault than the general population. In addition, she said, prison staff more often fail to protect these inmates than others, and are more likely to believe that assaults are consensual.

[soldierjane]

Why are they in jail in the first place?

[Mina_Frostfall]

Why are they in jail in the first place?

Umm... are you trying to tell us it's okay for them to be raped just because they are in jail? That's a horrible thing to say...

[tekla]

Though, if they are in jail for rape, which is the case in at least one of these threads, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  Karma can be a bitch.

[soldierjane]

Why are they in jail in the first place?

Umm... are you trying to tell us it's okay for them to be raped just because they are in jail? That's a horrible thing to say...

You'd do well not to put words in people's mouths or jump to conclusions. Valuable skills, you know?  Jail is a horrible environment which everyone would do well to avoid, way more if you're trans. Got it?

[Mina_Frostfall]

I'm sorry...

[Lisbeth]

Though, if they are in jail for rape, which is the case in at least one of these threads, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.  Karma can be a bitch.

Hmmmm.... Spreading it around can be, too.

[KarenLyn]

Why are they in jail in the first place?

When you live on the streets and beg or steal to eat, it's very easy to end up in jail even if you're not trans.

[Vicky]

Why are they in Jail----

A few answers I know for sure:
Doing drugs
Drunk driving
Public Intoxication (in jail in lieu of a locked hospital ward
Selling drugs
Soliciting prostitution
Soliciting sex with a minor
Assault & Battery
Petty theft
Grand theft by about 10 ways=health care fraud, welfare fraud, armed robbbery, credit card fraud, identity theft and 5 more when I can think about them.
Failure to obey police/fire department orders
Failure to obey court orders
Arson
Spousal abuse
Elder abuse

I'll stop here because I can't find my udated California Penal Code in order to keep going.  The percentage of TG folks who commit crimes are about the same percentage as that of straight cis-gendered people and along the same ethnic lines.

A jail of any type, level or jusridiction is NOT a nice place to be for anybody if they are loosed in the general prison population.  As I mentioned in another thread on this board, rape is about power for people who are so bereft of human heart and spirit that they will always be a danger to others.  (I made that statement to an attorney who was questioning me in regard to jury service.  His client [white cis-sexual male] turned a bright green when I said that.  It was a way to get out of jury duty, although that had not been my goal in saying it.)  GLBT's give them an "excuse" for added attention in their own minds, but if the GLBT's were not there, it would be someone who committed another type of crime such as rape of an inmates girlfriend, boyfriend or kid.  Substitutes will be found if the source of GLBT's dries up.  The fact that others perceive us as being more ready to to consent to bodily assault, and to have higher acceptance of physical abuse, and therefor fail to see that we can suffer at the same level they do, is a crime not on the books.  I wish we could force a law like that on to them, but I am trans and not sadistic to non-trans.