Trans Inmates: It's Complicated

Should trans woman Jovanie Saldana really be in a male prison?
Posted by Natalie Hope McDonald on 8/22/2011 at 12:25PM

http://blogs.phillymag.com/gphilly/2011/08/22/trans-inmates-complicated/         

In a recent article in the Philadelphia Daily News, reporters Dana DiFilippo and Philip Lucas suggest that Jovanie Saldana, a 23-year-old transgender woman, somehow "suckered" the system after it was discovered that she has been incarcerated in a female prison for more than a year. Not only does the article seem to suggest that gender identity is confined to sexual genitals (a major oversimplification at its worst), but it overlooks the fact that Saldana, a resident of Kensington, has accused a corrections officer of orally raping her while being in the jail.

We would argue that the safest place for an imprisoned transgender person is in a facility that's akin to their own gender identity. For someone like Saldana, who easily passes for a woman, to be jailed with men creates danger. Trans people often experience the highest rates of discrimination, violence and sexual assault out of anyone in the LGBT community. To place someone who may be biologically male (but who identifies as a woman – not even the prison knew she is biologically male) into a male prison poses many risks. And yet there are few options for inmates like Saldana in the U.S. penal system.