Gender Behind Bars

June 10, 2011 by Kyla Bender-Baird

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/06/10/gender-behind-bars/

Ophelia De'lonta, a transgender woman inmate housed in a men's prison, is suing the state of Virginia for failing to provide her with adequate medical care. When the Virginia Department of Corrections denied De'Lonta's request for genital surgery, she attempted self-castration.

De'Lonta's story is part of a much larger picture. It is all-too-common for prisons to deny transgender inmates access to gender reassignment treatment–not only genital surgery, but also hormones. In a recent study of the experiences of trans and gender variant people in Pennsylvania's prison systems, 62.7 percent of respondents were on hormones prior to incarceration but less than 20 percent were able to continue their hormones while incarcerated.