Through my three decades of incarceration in Tennessee, I’ve seen attitudes toward LGBTQ+ prisoners like myself change a lot. But never before have I seen such an active push to reverse those changes and undo hard-fought progress as what’s been unfolding over the past year, since President Donald Trump was re-elected.
The Tennessee GOP wants to push the LGBTQ+ community back in the closet, then nail the door shut. Through a rising tide of bills currently moving through the legislature, they’re trying to dismantle rights and protections associated with everything from same-sex marriage to preferred pronouns, queer-inclusive books and Pride Month.
South Central Correctional Facility, where I’ve been housed for the past decade or so, has the only openly LGBTQ+ community in the Tennessee prison system; it’s the only community like this that we’re aware of in any prison system. We’re very concerned about the changing attitudes we see among corrections officers and through the broader prison population, not only for our own safety and wellbeing but because we know that prison is a microcosm of the free world.
LGBTQ+ prisoners here are already feeling the tension. These days, staff feel at liberty to openly mock queer prisoners, and especially trans prisoners. Not just because of laws that have already been passed; there’s so much hateful rhetoric that comes with all the bills being proposed that they seem to already be having an effect, too.
Here at South Central we have a big community of lesbian corrections officers, and the hatred sowed by these proposals makes prison more hostile for them, too.
SB 2118/HB 2498, for example, would prohibit the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender-affirming health care. It has a committee hearing on March 17. HB 1666/SB 1665 would apply to public schools and would discourage people from respecting others’ preferred pronouns, or preferred name, if they wanted to call them something else. The legislation has a committee hearing March 18.
SB 2319/HB 2449, which has a committee hearing March 18, would require public libraries to create a “materials reconsideration policy” so that people could request particular books be removed, or moved to a different section. The point is to make it easier to get rid of books that are inclusive to LGBTQ+ people.
For a while now, the corrections officers here at South Central would ask trans and gender-nonconforming prisoners their preferred pronouns. Recently they’ve started to say they’re not going to do that anymore. Some of the officers who have been here a while feel empowered to change their stance, and there are so many new ones cycling in and out that they just follow their lead. Prison culture can change very quickly that way.
Here at South Central we have a big community of lesbian corrections officers, and the hatred sowed by these proposals makes prison more hostile for them, too.
In late 2025 we noticed that the prison mailroom was rejecting more books for “promoting homosexual activity.” Earlier that year, prisoners here who are prescribed hormone-replacement therapy were told that no new prisoners entering the system would be able to access the same treatment. Prisoners in federal Bureau of Prisons custody, meanwhile, are facing forced de-transitioning.
As prisoners, we’re always on government property.
Sexual violence is rampant in prisons, and heavily targets LGBTQ+ prisoners. As our rights and dignities are eroded, it becomes easier than ever for the system to turn a blind eye when LGBTQ+ prisoners are raped or killed.
HB 1472/SB 1745 would mean that “sex discrimination” cannot be interpreted to protect people from discrimination related to sexual orientation, gender identity or abortion. It’s calendared for a committee hearing March 18. Under HB 1473/SB 1746, which was passed by the House in late February, private organizations would no longer have to recognize same-sex marriages. This would make it so that even private hospitals, banks or insurance providers could deny people any legal rights as spouses.
HB 1474/SB 2409 is the “No Pride Flag or Month Act,” which is also calendared for its next committee hearing on March 18. It would ban government buildings from displaying any “flag or emblem intended to display support for lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, gender non-conforming behavior or individuals who engage in such conduct.” It would also ban government employees, volunteers or agents from acknowledging Pride month while they’re at work. The House versions of those three bills were introduced by Rep. Gino Bulso (R), who has for years claimed that teachers use the rainbow pride flag to indoctrinate students.
Prisons are government buildings, and corrections officers are government workers—or “agents” in the case of private prisons like South Central, which is managed by CoreCivic through a contract with the Tennessee Department of Correction. The legislation is quick to point out that it doesn’t infringe on anyone’s First Amendment rights because they’re still allowed to express themselves when they’re not at work. But as prisoners, we’re always on government property.
South Central’s LGBTQ+ community, Be The Change, uses rainbow flags and colors. During a recent church service, staff remarked that they wouldn’t be able to display those much longer.
