Use of Solitary Confinement Faces Growing Skepticism

This past Sunday, NPR’s All Things Considered feature story focused on the growing evidence against solitary confinement. According to NPR:

“An estimated 80,000 American prisoners spend 23 hours a day in closed isolation units for 10, 20 or even more than 30 years.

Now, amid growing evidence that it causes mental breakdown, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has decided for the first time to review its policies on solitary confinement.”

The federal review follows a Senate hearing last summer led by Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Durbin was moved to call the hearing by surgeon Atul Gawande’s harrowing New Yorker article, “Hellhole,” on the psychiatric impact of solitary confinement. At the hearing, corrections experts testified that while there may be some limited usefulness for solitary confinement for short periods of time, over an extended period it is usually unnecessary and exacts huge costs, both fiscal and human. Senators heard how some states have sharply limited or eliminated solitary confinement, saving money and sparing suffering. As the NPR story notes, most inmates will ultimately return to their communities – and returning them broken from the trauma of solitary has costs for communities as well.

NCTE’s Mara Keisling Talks LGBT Protections in VAWA on Democracy Now!

This week, NCTE celebrated the hard-fought bi-partisan reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which, for the first time, contains explicit protections for LGBT people. This morning, NCTE’s Executive Director, Mara Keisling, addressed LGBT involvement in the reauthorization process on Democracy Now!  More than a year ago, VAWA’s authorization was shamefully allowed to expire.  Throughout the past year, NCTE has supported the work of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects, the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, and many others in pressing for a comprehensive and LGBT-inclusive VAWA reauthorization.

 

An LGBT-inclusive VAWA is important because nearly one-fifth of transgender people have faced domestic violence from their families because they are transgender or gender non-conforming.  Generally, transgender people are already at greater risk of experiencing acts of domestic and bias-based violence.  Yet, despite this increased risk of violence and increased need for services, many trans people have experienced discrimination when trying to access these services.  The reauthorization of VAWA with LGBT-inclusive protections not only provides the necessary funding to implement the law, but importantly provides trans people with access to services that protect them from abuse. 

NCTE Joins Brief in Michelle Kosilek Case

Michelle Kosilek

The National Center for Transgender Equality is proud to have joined seven other organizations last week in filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the First Circuit federal appeals court in the case of Kosilek v. Spencer. The case, which has received significant public attention in recent months, is the latest in a series in which Massachusetts prison officials have refused to provide medically necessary treatment to transgender prisoners. In September, a federal court ordered the state to provide sex reassignment surgery for Michelle Kosilek after prison doctors determined it was the only adequate treatment for her severe gender dysphoria.

NCTE’s position in this case is driven by two core principles: First, that hormonal, surgical, and other medical treatments for gender dysphoria are medically necessary for many people and should be treated like any other medically necessary care, based on the medical needs of an individual as determined by qualified medical providers; and second, that people who are incarcerated and cannot provide for their own care have an unquestionable, constitutional right to adequate medical care. Participation in cases like this one is critical to establishing the legitimacy and necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria and ensuring all people have access to adequate health care in every setting.

NCTE Leads Effort to End LGBTI Sexual Abuse in Immigration Detention

Ana-Haydee Urda (left front) in the 2012 rally against private prisons sponsored by United Methodist Women and the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey.

Last week, the National Center for Transgender Equality, with our partners at Just Detention International  led advocacy efforts urging Secretary Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to strengthen protections against sexual abuse of LGBT people and people with intersex conditions in immigration detention. In addition to organizing over 800 individual comments and dozens of organizational comments, NCTE joined eight other national LGBT and allied groups in filing over 30 pages of public comments on the proposed regulations that address this problem, which is part of the implementation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act.

Sexual abuse of LGBT people and people with intersex conditions violates their basic human rights. The U.S. government has an obligation to provide safe and humane conditions for people in confinement. Not doing so impedes detainee’s ability to obtain lawful immigration status when eligible and to successfully adjust back into the community. Additionally, public health considerations like the widespread transmission of HIV and the growing rates of depression, anxiety and suicide ideation among immigration detainees demand swift action by the Department of Homeland Security.

UN Report: Forced Sterilization of Trans People “is Torture”

On February 1, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) issued a report on abusive practices in health care settings that has important implications for LGBT people and people with intersex conditions.

The report calls for repealing laws allowing “genital-normalizing” surgery on children with intersex conditions, and ending practices whereby LGBT patients or those with intersex conditions are subjected to unethical experimentation or made a subject of medical display without consent. The report also condemns the practice of so-called “reparative therapies” or “conversion therapies” that purport to change an individual’s gender identity or sexual orientation. Especially notable for transgender people was the Special Rapporteur’s call for ending forced or coerced sterilization of transgender people as condition of recognizing their gender identities.

Section 39 of the report says, “…Medical care that causes severe suffering for no justifiable reason can be considered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and if there is State involvement and specific intent, it is torture.”

Veterans Health Admin. Renews Trans Health Care Directive

The Veterans Health Administration has issued a renewed and updated directive on providing health care for transgender veterans and veterans with intersex conditions. VHA originally issued this directive in June 2011, and like other VHA directives it carried a technical expiration date, and was intended to be updated or included in other, permanent VHA policy documents in the future. While the expiration date passed in late 2012, actual VA policy never changed, and the new directive is effective for at least the next five years.

The renewed VHA directive is essentially identical to the 2011 version, but is accompanied by an official FAQ document that provides helpful clarification on patients’ rights to be treated according to their gender identity for purposes of pronouns, restroom access, and room placements, as well as on how to update gender markers in VHA patient records. There is also additional guidance for VHA health care providers who may be treating a transgender or intersex patient for the first time.

Cervical Health Awareness Month: Check It Out, No Matter Your Gender

Cervical cancer screenings prevent cancer and save lives. But for many transgender people, getting these basic screenings is fraught with anxiety and fear. Both the very real fear of disrespect and discrimination, and the dysphoria many people feel about this part of their body, make going for these tests feel anything but routine. In the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, we found that forty-eight percent of transgender men delay or avoid getting preventive care due to the fear of encountering discrimination.

It doesn’t help that, even during this Cervical Health Awareness Month, virtually everything we hear about the subject is framed in alienating gendered terms. For example, a quick survey of online articles on cervical cancer testing  refer only to women and do not address the need for cervical cancer screenings among people of other genders. Any mention of trans people’s needs for cervical screenings is limited to blogs and other trans community spaces.