A potentially dangerous change in policy
Under the direction of President Donald. J. Trump’s Bureau of Prisons, the Justice Department division will now use an inmate’s biological sex to initially determine where that person will be housed and which bathroom the person will use. The news came via a quickly enacted policy change that was placed in the bureau’s Transgender Offender Manual released Friday.
The revised manual says assigning an inmate to a prison facility based on the person’s identified gender is appropriate “only in rare cases.”
This policy change comes at a time when it has has been discovered the United States Small Business Administration has removed any language regarding LGBT persons from its website.
The new guidelines for trans prisoners state that – although prison staff should “consider the health and safety of the transgender inmate” – officials should also “consider whether placement would threaten the management and security of the institution and/or pose a risk to other inmates in the institution.”
The change in policy appears to have been sparked after four evangelical Christians in Texas prison sued in US District Court, challenging the Obama administration’s guidelines that allowed transgender women to avoid being placed in male prisons.
Lambda Legal shared the following statement regarding the change in prisoner policy:
“Once again, the Trump Administration is turning its back on those most vulnerable. It is well established that transgender prisoners – particularly transgender women housed in men’s facilities – suffer much greater rates of sexual abuse than other prison populations.
A California study found that when transgender women are housed with men, they are 13 times more likely to be sexually assaulted than male prisoners in the same facilities.
Conversely, it is increasingly common for correctional facilities to house transgender people consistent with their gender identity, and agencies have made these placements without experiencing any increase in abusive incidents or security risks. There is no justification for this policy shift; it is a deliberate recipe for violence against transgender people based in inexcusable prejudice.”
