30-f-1 Housing Issues for Transgender Prisoners[120]

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

30-F-1. Housing Issues for Transgender Prisoners[120]

Like most other institutions, prisons are structured around the assumptions that all people are easily classified as either male or female, gender is assigned at birth, and a person's gender remains constant throughout life. These assumptions present challenges for transgender, intersex, and other gender-variant prisoners, as the overwhelming majority of prisons recognize only two genders and segregate male from female prisoners.

Transgender prisoners are generally housed either according to the gender they were assigned at birth or by their genitalia.¹²¹ However, the PREA Standards require housing decisions to be made on an individual basis, taking into consideration the health safety of the inmate.¹²² Furthermore, prison staff cannot make housing decisions based only on a prisoner's LGBT status.¹²³

To date, the gendered housing policies of prisons placing transgender prisoners in housing for genders with which they do not identify have not been successfully challenged in court.¹²⁴ The Supreme Court has explicitly held that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to choose their place of confinement.¹²⁵ Moreover, courts generally respect prison officials' choices about how to manage their institutions,¹²⁶ and classification within prisons has not been found to violate a liberty interest.¹²⁷ Thus, it is unlikely that you will be able to successfully challenge your housing classification in court.

120. All known...