Seattle, USA
— Even talking about the incident now, all these
months later, Nick still gets upset.
The 27-year-old Seattle
resident, who asked that his full name not be used, told
of how he and his roommate — both in the process of
transitioning from female to male — had been picked
up by Seattle police on suspicion of misdemeanors in
spring 2005 and booked into the King County
Jail.
They spent more than 10
hours in a holding cell while authorities tried to figure
out what to do with them.
Eventually a male nurse
told the pair — who both still have female genitalia
— they would have to lower their pants to prove
their gender. Across the hall they heard guards taking
bets: $20 for the one who had guessed
correctly.
"We were forced to pull
pants down, not because we'd been arrested for drugs or
weapons or for any other reason than to harass us," said
Nick, who works in sales. "They put us in female colors
and gave us female underwear — humiliating stuff for
people in our situation."
What happened to Nick and
his roommate became a catalyst for a policy outlining how
transgender men and women should be booked and housed in
King County's two jails and its juvenile-detention
facility.
Understanding the
terms
Transgender: A broad term
used for a variety of individuals, such as
cross-dressers, drag queens, or male-to-female or
female-to-male transsexuals whose gender expression or
identity differs from conventional expectations based on
the gender they were born with.
Transsexual: A more
specific term that refers to males or females who live as
a gender not assigned to them at birth, with or without
medical intervention.
The county adopted the
guidelines in August, joining only a few jurisdictions
nationally with such policies. Hailed as progressive by
transgender advocates and activists nationwide, the
five-page document is as much a way for the county to
protect itself from litigation as it is to ensure the
safety of transgender inmates.
Housing assignments
still a disputed issue
Still, in at least one
key area — housing assignments — jail officials
and activists appear to have different
interpretations.
Activists want
transgender inmates to be placed automatically in
administrative segregation, with access to the same
services available to those in the general
population.
Jail officials, however,
say they need flexibility in housing transgender
individuals and that assignments will be guided largely
by genitalia.
Lincoln Rose, a
transgender activist and part of a group called the Trans
Jail Policy Project that worked with the county, said,
"Most people are willing to write off inmates in jails
and prisons, feeling that what happens to them there is
part of the penalty.
"Nobody gets royal
treatment in jail," said Rose, a theology student at
Seattle University. "But we feel with this vocabulary and
framework in place, at least we stand a chance of being
treated like human beings."
For its work, the policy
group recently was awarded the city of Seattle's
Distinguished Award for Human Rights.
Rev. Joe Fuiten, who
heads the Committee for Religious Freedom, said the
county should not be required to make special
accommodations for those in the process of changing their
gender.
"A person is what they
are, and that is determined by known criteria," he said.
"I think genitalia would be the way to identify people.
Policy ought to be for the rule rather than the oddball
exception."
Umbrella term takes in
many individuals
Transgender is a broad
term used by a variety of individuals whose gender
expression or identity differs from conventional
expectations of their gender at birth.
Nationwide, there are no
good estimates of the number of people who identify
themselves this way.
Transgender activists say
they've been empowered by the feminist and gay-rights
movements and that transgender people increasingly feel
more confident to live the gender they believe they were
intended to be.
This has left many
institutions struggling with issues of accommodation
— in public and private bathrooms, at gender-based
schools, and in hospitals, prisons and jails.
Mark Bolton, deputy
director of the King County Department of Adult and
Juvenile Detention, said that of the estimated 55,000
inmates processed each year, only a handful are
transgender men and women.
While Bolton said he
could not discuss the incident involving the two
roommates, what happened "sent a signal that we needed to
have clarity on this issue."
The new policy, he said,
doesn't bring dramatic change to the way transgender
inmates are processed in county jails, but puts into
writing what previously had been left to common
sense.
It's an area many jails
nationally have not addressed, he said. In the months
since King County installed its policy, Bolton said he's
received several calls from other jurisdictions that hope
to follow suit.
"I think we got out in
front of this thing at a pretty good time," he said.
"There have been a lot of jails and prisons that ended up
in litigation because they did not handle this issue with
the dignity and respect they should have."
Nationally, no state has
a comprehensive policy for transgender inmates in prison,
said Alex Lee, an attorney who runs the Transgender,
Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project in
California's Bay Area.
What the county's new
policy requires
King County's transgender
policy prohibits strip searches simply to determine an
inmate's sex. It requires staff to address these inmates
by their last names and refrain from using Mr. or
Ms.
It permits inmates to
wear clothing consistent with their target gender, and
labels as harassment any discussions about gender
identity within earshot of a transgender
inmate.
The policy also requires
inmates to have access to all necessary medical and
mental-health care. Those placed in protective custody
for safety are to have access to the same services and
programs available to the general population.
When it comes to housing,
Bolton said officials need flexibility and that
assignment of transgender inmates will be "genitalia
driven" to a point.
Transgender individuals
who express concern for their safety, or those whose
transition has progressed so far that they no longer
appear as their original gender, could be placed in
administrative segregation, with access to services, he
said.
In King County, inmates
placed in administrative segregation in either the male
or female sections of the jail are housed separately from
the general population and usually have limited movement
and access to services.
Flexibility may lead to
subjective decisions
But Rose worries that
with too much flexibility, housing assignments could
become subjective.
Bolton said it would help
authorities to know how to house transgender individuals
if they reveal their sexual identity during
processing.
While Rose understands
that, he also worries about encouraging transgender
people to "out" themselves, fearing that could make
things worse for them.
Nick, the transgender
man, said he and his roommate's treatment grew worse once
they revealed they were transgender.
Numerous guards got
involved in escorting him to his cell, he said, mocking
him and asking probing questions about his personal life.
One referred to transgender people as freaks, asking why
any man would want to cut his genitals off.
Never felt safe enough
to reveal truth
"The reason we didn't
initially reveal is that we never felt safe enough to do
so," Nick said.
"We felt they already
knew [we were transgender] and us proving them
right would only get us harassed even more. We were
right."
Sara Ainsworth, senior
counsel for the Northwest Women's Law Center, which wrote
a letter of support for the policy, said, "Clearly, what
happened to these men pointed up a strong need for a
policy that directs guards and other personnel on how to
handle inmates facing these circumstances."
Nationwide, activists and
advocates — county by county — have been
working in isolation for years on transgender-inmate
safety.
Their results are mixed,
said Lisa Mottet, Washington D.C.-based
transgender-rights attorney with the National Gay and
Lesbian Task Force.
"Unfortunately, most
cities and state government have not written formal
policies on transgender inmates," she said.
"That means there's a lot
of confusion and a lot of case-by-case analysis of what
to do in any situation, and it also means that a lot of
folks are being exposed to discrimination and
mistreatment."
In most cases, she said,
transgender people who have not had surgery or changed
their gender on their driver's license are treated by
most jail and prison officials across the country as
having their birth gender.
