Citing attacks from the Trump administration and overcrowding on Rikers Island, advocates for transgender people behind bars are pushing local lawmakers to codify how transgender detainees are identified and housed in gender-aligned units.
In recent months, the White House has tried to force the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to move transgender women back into male units and is forcibly transitioning people by not giving them access to gender-affirming hormone medication.
The BOP also no longer bars pat-down searches of transgender women from male guards and has blocked transgender people from buying the underwear they prefer in order to get in line with Trump’s executive order signed Jan. 20.
And on Wednesday, the Department of Justice ended funding for the Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center, The Appeal reported. The center has since 2010 trained law enforcement officials how to comply with the federal law and also shares information about audits into how local lockups are enacting the rules.
In an email response to questions about the cuts, a DOJ spokesperson said the agency is “focused on prosecuting criminals, getting illegal drugs off of the streets, and protecting American institutions from toxic [diversity, equity and inclusion] and sanctuary city policies.”
The unnamed spokesperson added: “Discretionary funds that are no longer aligned with the administration’s priorities are subject to review and reallocation.”
In New York, advocates fear the Trump administration will threaten further cuts and put pressure on local policies.
“There’s a big worry that either states will comply in advance and forcibly detransition people, or people will be mandated to be moved back where they are tremendously unsafe in men’s facilities,” said Rachel Golden, a member of a city task force on issues faced by Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Non-Binary, and Intersex (TGNCNBI) people in custody.
At stake is the future of how jail officials treat transgender people, some of the most vulnerable, who have faced high rates of sexual assault and other violence behind bars.
Under a proposed measure in the City Council, known as Intro. 625, detainees would always be given their gender-aligned choice and jail officials would not be able to move them out unless they provide a detailed explanation why someone should be transferred or ignored.
Advocates say that measure would make it easier for transgender detainees to be placed in the right facility.
“We’re all very concerned about what type of threats the federal government might make,” said Erin Harrist, the director of the LGBTQ+ Unit at The Legal Aid Society.
“We’ve seen what they’ve done in Maine. Are they going to try to do similar things to New York?”
In Maine, the feds yanked $1.5 million in grants to the state’s corrections department for housing a transgender woman in a women’s facility, according to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“We pulled all nonessential funding from the Department of Corrections in Maine, because they were allowing a man in a woman’s prison,” she told Fox News.
In New York City, detainees can self-identify as transgender and ask to be moved into the female housing unit known as the Rose M. Singer Center. In 2014, the Department of Correction also opened a Transgender Housing Unit for transgender women at Rikers.
The DOC has final say where detainees are placed. Privately, DOC officials have told advocates that there is no plan to change that policy.
But transgender rights advocates fear that Mayor Eric Adams, seemingly fleeing the Democratic party, will side with the Trump administration, as he has on immigration enforcement.
A few weeks after federal prosecutors under Trump moved to drop corruption charges against Adams, the mayor’s new top deputy signed an order to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents back onto Rikers.
The City Council has sued, arguing that allowing immigration officials back onto Rikers was a violation of the city’s conflicts of interest law.
On Tuesday, a judge temporarily blocked the plan.
‘New York City Must Act Now’
Approximately 50 transgender people are currently in the Rose Center or put in the specialized Transgender Housing Unit, according to DOC records posted online. Advocates believe that number is low and fails to capture transgender women who have been denied their gender-affirming status.
As THE CITY reported in 2022, a task force convened by the Board of Correction found that the city jails system continually fails to identify, protect, and properly care for transgender, gender non-conforming, nonbinary, and/or intersex (TGNCNBI) people in custody.
Among some of the task force’s findings: transgender women are routinely sent through a men’s jail intake facility, sometimes for days. Guards threaten to switch trans detainees to opposite-sex housing for not following mundane rules. Many struggle for months to get basic medication.
And the BOC probe found that in a majority of cases studied, people were housed in units inconsistent with their gender identity.
Further compounding the problem, city jail officials struggling to find space for an increasing population have quietly begun to move some men into the Rose Center, internal city Department of Correction records obtained by THE CITY show.
“The women feel the space and resources closing in on them,” a DOC staffer who asked to remain anonymous told THE CITY.
As for possible federal pressure, advocates hope the proposed City Council legislation will help forestall any attack by the Trump administration.
“I think the City Council really has the power right now to affect this change,” said Golden, a psychologist specializing in gender-affirming care.
In March, a group of public defenders, civil rights advocates, LGBTQ+ organizations sent a letter urging the New York City Council to pass the legislation.
“New York City must act now,” the letter said. “Trump’s order emboldens the abuses TGNCNBI people face by sending the chilling message that transgender people’s lives are expendable.”
Safety Debates
During a Council hearing in September, Francis Torres, the DOC’s first deputy commissioner, told lawmakers that the department has “serious concerns” about the proposed legislation.
“As drafted, the bill will create an untenably high burden for making house determinations in the case an individual identifies as TGNBI,” she said. “It would allow for only one reason to deny an individual’s preferred housing placement which the bill describes as a current danger of gender-based violence against others.”
The legislation would allow all new detainees to be transferred to a different facility “at-will any time simply by stating that they identify as TGNBI,” she said.
“It is not possible to run a jail this way. It is not safe, especially so for women and TGNBI individuals,” she added.
Harrist, from Legal Aid, charged that DOC’s opposition “amounts to nothing more than transphobia — that trans people cannot be trusted when they say who they are and that transgender women pose a threat to cisgender women.”
Hundreds of people packed into Foley Square to hold a vigil for Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender woman who died while being held in solitary confinement on Rikers Island, June 10, 2019. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
Natalie Fiorenzo, a Corrections Specialist at New York County Defender Services, and other supporters of the legislation contend that the department’s security concerns are unfounded.
“100 percent of my TGNCNBI clients that are not housed in a gender-aligned facility experienced physical violence, sexual violence or both,” she testified at the Council hearing
“Moving a cisgender woman to a male facility due to her charges or an incident in custody is unfathomable,” she added. “The fact that this punishment exists for transgender women is transphobic and illegal per the New York City and State’s own Human Rights Law.”
The death of Layleen Polanco, a 27-year-old transgender woman, in solitary confinement on Rikers Island in 2019 galvanized a movement against isolating detainees for long stretches.
It also called attention to how transgender people are treated behind bars on Rikers. Guards found Polanco was found dead in her cell after being placed in solitary following a fight with another detainee, according to jail records.
Jail investigators found that, despite her known health issues including epilepsy, Polanco was denied proper medical care. Officers also failed to properly check on her, according to surveillance footage.
The state prison system has also struggled to properly identify and treat its transgender population, according to advocates.
An estimated 274 individuals in the system currently identify as transgender or “gender diverse,” according to Thomas Mailey, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.
They are housed in 35 of the department’s 42 facilities which match their chosen gender expression, Mailey added.
State Senator Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblymember Nily Rozic (D-Queens) have introduced the Gender Identity Respect, Dignity and Safety Act. It aims to enshrine protections for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals in custody, including housing consistent with gender identity and access to gender-affirming care.
Citing the Trump DOJ cuts and executive orders, Michele Deitch, director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, urged state lawmakers throughout the country to take action.
“As these critical vehicles for federal oversight of prisons and jails fall, there has never been a more urgent time to push for stronger oversight at the state level.”
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