In the year between paroling out of Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) custody and being thrown into county jail for a technical violation, I obtained several of the gender-affirming procedures and treatments I was denied access to while in prison. Breast augmentation, lip filler, body contouring, etc. I’d litigated for hormone replacement therapy and laser hair removal during the decade-plus I spent in the GDC men’s system, and my face and voice have always been feminine, but I’ve never had the type of conventionally female hourglass figure that I do now. In all my time being incarcerated in men’s prisons and jails, I’ve never felt safer.
For the past three months since I arrived, jail staff seem almost apologetic that they have to keep me here. Detainees seem almost apologetic that I have to be around them. Like everyone’s just mutually agreed that I’m obviously not supposed to be in a men’s facility.
Back when I was in GDC and everyone else on the chain gang just thought of me as a sissy boy, if I was intimately involved with someone it could often draw strong reactions from other people and become a problem in the dorm. I’m now married and have no desire to pursue anything with anyone here. But it’s impossible to not notice that everyone seems to perceive me as something to be admired from a distance—look, but don’t touch. If anything, people want to make sure no one’s bothering me too much.
I’m not gonna lie, all kinds of things are easier now. When I was suddenly moved from a quiet medical dorm into the general jail population, at first I assumed I’d be sleeping by the stairs outside the bathroom—it’s so overcrowded here, everyone was just finding whatever patch of floor they could. But without me doing anything at all, some of my new dormmates hung a makeshift curtain in front of an alcove in the wall so I could sleep there, saying they figured I might want some privacy. And I did. I’m sure everyone did. But no one held it against me for getting special treatment.
In prison, I was a hustler and everyone knew it. I was self-sufficient, resourceful and never wanted to rely on anyone. When I needed something, I figured it out on my own.
I’m still that same person, but now instead of worrying about people stealing my food I’m being handed my tray by someone who brought it to me just to be nice. People offer to cook for me. If no one’s really watching the TV and I ask to change the channel—which is usually a quick way to start a fight—people will look around and take the temperature of the room and agree to put on the channel I wanted. What I used to have to work for, people just give me now.
The scary and strange thing is that if I were to get sent back to prison, I’m not really sure how I’d be treated.
I feel some guilt about feeling this way, but it’s validating. I’ve always been cute, but previously, subconsciously or not, people did not perceive me as a woman. I think back to another trans girl I knew in GDC who I’d always thought was so beautiful, who in my mind looked like the traditional notion of a cisgender woman. And she was treated like a princess. I see other trans women who pass through here being treated the way I used to be treated, because they don’t look the way the staff and other detainees think a woman is supposed to look. I know that if they’re sent to prison, the way they’re treated will get worse. And the scary and strange thing is that if I were to get sent back into GDC, I’m not really sure what would happen.
I have less than two months to go until I’m off parole and can no longer be held in jail, since I haven’t broken any new laws or had new charges filed against me since my original conviction for sex work as a teenager. I’m hopeful I can avoid being handed over to GDC in that time. Aside from the fact that they’ll try to shave my head, I know I’d be less safe there than I am here.
The stereotype that trans women and particularly trans women of color are hypersexual, that we’re giving some sort of consent simply by existing, will still shape the way I’m treated. But I do think I’d be less of a target for sexual assault than the last time I was in prison. It’s a little surreal to find myself almost not worried about that, or at least not in the same way.
However, I’d potentially have a new minefield to navigate: the perception that someone who’s visibly transitioned must have money.
In jail this hasn’t been the problem I know it could be in GDC. Jail and prison are both places of deprivation, but it manifests differently because in jail people still have hope. They’re not as willing to worsen their situation as they might become in prison. In prison, if one person’s in a position to prey upon another, they will.
Image via Federal Bureau of Prisons
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