老澳门开奖结果

Most Americans can say that they鈥檝e never had the pleasure of spending time in jail or prison. And we don鈥檛 really expect jails or prisons to be posh places, but we do expect them to keep those who end up there safe. Transgender Americans, on the other hand, face a different reality. Even a short jail experience, if you鈥檙e transgender, can be fraught with indignities, hostility, even violence or sexual assault.

The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear in that prison administrators who turn a blind eye to the sexual assault of transgender prisoners violate the Constitution. What the Court didn鈥檛 address was exactly how prisons and jails should go about keeping transgender prisoners safe.

A few enlightened prison experts have figured out that placement decisions shouldn鈥檛 be based on fixed rules about transgender people, such as the 鈥済enital rule鈥� most prisons currently follow. Under this rule, a transgender inmate who has lived for many years as a woman is placed in a jail cell with other men, just because she hasn鈥檛 had genital surgery. And routine searches of transgender women are often carried out by male, rather than female, staff.

Imagine the risks these practices impose on transgender men and women. A found that 鈥淸s]exual assault is 13 times more prevalent among transgender inmates, with 59 percent reporting being sexuallyassaulted.鈥� (emphasis added).

Recently, the jail administrators at the county jail in Portland, Maine recognized the need to do something to protect transgender detainees and drafted a policy to guide those efforts. The and the 老澳门开奖结果 LGBT Project, along with some help from Jennifer Levi at , were given the opportunity to comment on the draft and the result is a great success. Although there are aspects of it we鈥檇 change, the basic structure is exactly right.

It puts into place a Transgender Review Committee that takes into account gender identity (someone鈥檚 internal sense of maleness or femaleness) before classifying transgender inmates. Verbal and physical harassment are explicitly prohibited Transgender inmates are allowed to state their preference for whether they鈥檙e searched by male or female guards. Inmates can dress and use names or pronouns that fit their gender identity. It鈥檚 an extraordinary improvement over the practices in most other jails and prisons. Mainers should be proud.