By Michael A. Fuoco
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PITTSBURGH — Superintendent Robert Gilmore and other top staff at the state prison in Waynesburg formally known as State Correctional Institution at Greene passed around a bag and blindly pulled out a pin reading either “Team Blue,” “Team Pink” or “Team Both.”
Jezebel Bebbington D’Opulence had asked them to do so as part of an exercise, explaining that regardless of the gender they had been assigned at birth to imagine they identified with the gender the pins represented, even if it differed from their reality.
“Imagine you are still you but your gender is this,” Ms. D’Opulence, a transgender woman, said to those who chose pins signifying a gender that differed from the one they identify with. “Imagine you have absolutely no choice in the matter. That’s pretty much how transgender people feel.”
Point taken, the staff indicated with nodding heads and knowing looks.
For the next 90 minutes Ms. D’Opulence told her story of transitioning from male to female. And then she fielded questions from the staff about how they could better show dignity and respect to transgender prisoners in their custody and control.
“They were very curious,” she recalled later. “They don’t want to commit mistakes. They said, ‘We want to treat everyone with the utmost respect.’
“I didn’t go there because I wanted to tell my story again, but because if it helps one person sitting in a cell receive help and compassion, then it was worth it.”
Ms. D’Opulence’s experience at SCI Greene is but one example of an effort by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to use community resources to educate staff at all of its state facilities about transgender issues. The initiative is part of broader changes in a series of policy updates that has brought the corrections department into compliance with the final regulations issued in May 2012 by the U.S. Department of Justice to implement the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003.
PREA was unanimously passed by Congress to comprehensively address prison operations as they relate to preventing, protecting and responding to sexual abuse, for which transgender people are dramatically more at risk than other prisoners. A Bureau of Justice Statistics survey in 2011-12 found that 39.9 percent of transgender prison inmates reported unwanted sexual activity with other inmates or staff members —10 times higher than for the general prison population.
Last year, to comply with PREA, the state corrections department established a new individual assessment policy to determine the best place to house each transgender inmate. Under the policy, “serious consideration” must be given to a transgender or intersex inmate’s concerns about safety.
Among other policy changes were the rescinding of a prohibition of sex-reassignment surgery; creation of new commissary lists that permit transgender prisoners to buy gender-appropriate underwear and makeup; and the opportunity to shower alone, if desired.
While applauding the changes here and in local jails and state prisons nationally, transgender advocates say real change will only occur when transgender prisoners are housed in facilities that correspond with the gender they identify with.
At present, Pennsylvania houses 111 transgender women and five transgender men in its prisons. All but one are housed in facilities that match the gender they were assigned at birth but to which they do not identify.
Shirley Moore Smeal, executive deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said in an interview that those housing decisions were made by using the new PREA-required screening policy in which each prison has a gender review committee to ascertain risk as determined by both staff and the inmate. That input “is reviewed by multidisciplinary teams about where the best housing would be for the individual as well as the best educational and employment opportunities,” she said.
Moreover, she noted that her department has consulted with Pennsylvania Physician General Rachel Levine, the highest-ranking openly transgender person in state government history.
“She gave presentations to the secretary, the executive staff as well as all of the superintendents of the facilities so that there would be a better understanding of transgender issues,” Ms. Smeal said. “We’ve also consulted with other experts in the field to write policies that address different issues and the executive staff is making videos for staff education.”
From a national perspective, Harper Jean Tobin, policy director for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said that while some progress has occurred because of PREA’s implementation four years ago, “I think we had hoped for a lot more progress by now.”
She said that while most state prison systems may be following the letter of PREA rules when it comes to placement of transgender inmates, many are not following the spirit.
“Overwhelmingly, across the country what is actually happening is it’s very, very rare that transgender people are incarcerated in a manner consistent with their gender identity,” Ms. Tobin said. “That suggests a lot of non-compliance. It also suggests a lot of danger.
“Justice Department guidance is that if you are making the same decision 99 or 100 percent of the time, you are not making meaningful case-by-case decisions.”
She suggested that the prisons adopt the same policies as those used by public schools, homeless shelters, health care facilities and domestic violence shelters among other institutions in which gender self-identification is the guiding force.
“All of those institutions moved much more swiftly in treating people by the gender they identify as a rule,” she said. “ Correction facilities have a great deal more discretion in how they treat transgender people, but it does not appear they are making good use of that discretion.”
Ms. Smeal noted that her corrections department is committed to adopting best practices.
“The whole approach of the Corrections Department is to humanize the department and recognize everyone as individuals, providing for the needs of each, not only to enhance institutional safety but public safety,” she said.
Ms. Tobin said she is hopes that more prison reform will occur given the attention being given by the Justice Department and the courts, the greater amount of research about transgender people, the higher public visibility of transgender people and the increased attention society is now paying to their issues.
“All of those trends, I hope, will bring about more progress and more understanding that transgender people need to be protected,” she said. “And part of protecting them is treating them according to gender identity, which should be the rule rather than the exception it is now.”
Copyright 2016 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette