Overrepresented in prisons: LGBTQ2S+ people
Overrepresented in prisons: LGBTQ2S+ people
This article was originally published in Workers World on May 28, 2021 At every stage in the criminal injustice system, LGBTQ2S+ people are overrepresented, including within the juvenile justice system. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, this is true from arrest to sentencing to in
This disparity is driven by lesbian and bisexual women, who are 4 times as likely to be arrested than straight women (with an arrest rate of 3,860 per 100,000 compared to 860 per 100,000).
…wow.
“Once behind bars, trans people face extremely high rates of harassment and physical and sexual assault, are frequently denied routine health care and are at high risk of being sent to solitary confinement. Black and Pink found that 44% of transgender, nonbinary gender and [Indigenous] Two‐Spirit [people] in their sample were denied access to hormones they requested.” (Prison Policy Initiative)
This is slightly unrelated, but reading this I couldn’t help but be reminded of an unpleasant confrontation that I had years ago with a trans‐exclusionist on Fedbook. In my anger I showed her an example of a transgender person in prison suffering severe violence, telling her that she supported that. She just shrugged it off as ‘violence against men’, which is an excuse so fucking hideously lazy that I can’t even begin to describe it.