Prisoner Correspondence Project

write to a queer incarcerated person TODAY! www.prisonercorrespondenceproject.com

[queerprisonersolidarity]

The Prisoner Correspondence Project is a solidarity project for 2SLGBTQ+ prisoners in Canada and the United States, linking them with people a part of these same communities outside of prison.

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This blog is not regularly monitored. Instead, please contact us through email; information can be found on our website.

[queerprisonersolidarity]

Hi, I've just found out about your project and I'm wondering if it's possible to join for someone outside the US and Canada, or if you don't send out mail across the Atlantic (understandable).

I’m glad you’re interested! When we're contacted by people living in the UK, we usually refer them to Bent Bars, which has a similar LGBTQ+ prisoner pen pal program there. You can learn more here: http://www.bentbarsproject.org/get-involved If for whatever reason you still prefer to write to someone through our project, you're welcome to participate. We just ask you to be open to the possibility of contributing to the cost of higher international postage costs for your penpal, should such a need arise. This can be figured out once you're actually in touch with the person.

[genderoutlaws]

The Trump Administration Admits to Medically Experimenting on Trans People in Prisons

The Trump administration admits to testing conversion therapy on trans prisoners and implies its policy of forcibly detransitioning trans me

i know hardly anyone reads articles when i share them so to highlight some key parts here:

"under [this policy], the ~2,200 trans people in federal custody will be medically and socially detransitioned against their will, all in the name of helping them “recover” from gender dysphoria."

"...the third study in this category attempts to compare trans women who undergo gender-affirming surgery to those with an entirely unrelated medical condition known as ‘adult acquired buried penis.’ Equating these two is an entirely medically inaccurate and hateful rhetorical decision, and it’s telling of the manner in which the Trump administration is trying to frame trans people’s bodies.

Meanwhile, the fourth study analyzes fertility in 18 trans men who paused their hormone therapy in order to have children, and it constitutes the only fertility study the BOP admits to have reviewed. As if that wasn’t alarming enough, this specific study doesn’t evaluate if trans men can carry children after going off testosterone; it actually evaluates when. Given the fact that the BOP has no legitimate reason to concern itself with fertility, this implies that the Trump administration—at least in part—created the prison policy out of a desire to find out how soon the forcibly detransitioned trans men in its custody will be able to carry children.

Finally, perhaps the greatest confession is provided by the last two sources. The first of these is a medical article providing commentary on a study—a study that was not reviewed during the creation of this policy—of trans patients at Kaiser Permanente clinics, and in its words, its sole purpose is to “describe methods of cohort ascertainment and data collection and to characterise the study population.” Put differently, it communicates two things: how to single out trans people through health information and what data a study on trans people should collect."

"So far, the judge overseeing the ACLU’s lawsuit against this policy, Reagan appointee Royce Lamberth, has been surprisingly sympathetic towards the plaintiffs and, as a result, has blocked it from being enforced for the ~800 that have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. However, if the Bureau of Prisons’ policy is eventually allowed to stand by the Supreme Court, it will undoubtedly lead to tremendous suffering among the trans people in federal custody."

[cl0ckworkpuppet]

This policy is BOP 5260.01, and is accessible on the BOP's website.

Quotes from the policy itself under the cut. Please read if you can stomach it. Quotations are organized by section and cited by page number.

Here's the memorandum supplied to prison officers along with the release of policy 5260.01. The memo is available in full, text included, at my link above.

Under section 2, Definitions:

Gender Identity: a fully internal and subjective sense of self, disconnected from biological reality and sex and existing on an infinite continuum, that does not provide a meaningful basis for identification and cannot be recognized as a replacement for sex. (2)

[...]

Sex Trait Modification Surgeries: surgical procedures that seek to modify the person’s physical characteristics to appear to align with the person’s “gender identity” rather than the person’s sex. [...] (3)

Under section 5, Treatment:

Psychotherapy should be prioritized. Treatment should include, at a minimum, therapy in accordance with their mental health care level as outlined in Program Statement PS 5310.16, Treatment and Care of Inmates with Mental Illness. Additionally, other treatments, such as psychoeducational group interventions, may be added as clinically indicated. Treatment interventions will focus on managing the psychological distress/dysphoria, assisting with adjustment to incarceration, community re-entry, and strengthening resilience. Follow-up mental health care should target any associated emotional or behavioral problems and should emphasize supportive treatment modalities. (6)

[...]

In instances when an inmate is diagnosed with GD, the Bureau will not provide sex trait modification surgeries to address GD and the inmate will not receive sex trait modification surgeries to address GD. For inmates who have had sex trait modification surgery, medical care will be provided as necessary to address any complications or resulting conditions, such as urethral stricture and pelvic infections. (7)

[...]

For inmates that have recently begun receiving hormones to address GD, the Primary Care Provider shall develop a tapering plan that includes a rapid discontinuation of the hormone intervention. For inmates that have been receiving hormones to address GD for an extended period of time, the Primary Care Provider shall develop a tapering plan that includes an appropriately paced discontinuation of the hormone intervention. For inmates who (1) are post sex trait modification surgery or (2) have been receiving hormones to address GD for an extended period of time and develop severe physiological and psychological withdrawal effects from tapering, it may not be appropriate in all cases for the initial tapering plan to include cessation of hormones. But tapering plans should be reevaluated regularly with respect to cessation of hormones, including during the inmate’s chronic care clinic appointments. (8)

Most concerningly:

The Bureau will not provide social accommodations, including to inmates diagnosed with GD, and the inmate will not receive social accommodations. If the inmate currently has social accommodations, the Bureau shall no longer provide the social accommodations and, when practicable, remove or confiscate the social accommodations. When appropriate, and in accordance with standard procedure, inmates may still have access to purchase items on the standardized list of Commissary items available to inmates in their facility. (8)

"Social accommodations" are defined as:

items, including cosmetics and clothing, used to alter the person’s appearance to align with the person’s “gender identity.” Examples of “social accommodations” include buttock padding, breast padding, binders, undergarments, makeup, and wigs. (2)

They are trying to literally strip inmates of everything that allows them to transition.

THEY ARE TRYING TO LITERALLY STRIP INMATES OF EVERYTHING THAT ALLOWS THEM TO TRANSITION.

Be mad about this. Don't look away just because they're in prison. They are people. They are trans people. They could even be innocent. But even if they're not, that doesn't matter. They're still people.

And if you still don't care, for some reason, remember they won't stop here if they can help it. Remember that, with enough push, with enough legislative power, they can make anything a crime. Anyone could be an inmate.

[trans-axolotl]

begging people to start paying attention to prison organizing and listening directly to incarcerated activists who are talking about these things instead of just basing your knowledge of the US prison system off of true crime podcasts or brooklyn 99 or whatever.

Marshall Project, Prison Journalism Project, and Scalawag Magazine all have a lot of really good coverage of US prison news and share a lot of writing from incarcerated journalists. Prison Radio has a bunch of important commentaries from incarcerated journalists.

there are a ton of books to prisoners programs and inside/outside organizing collectives and just so much out there if you look for it.

[muppethole-deactivated20240312]

more people would be for prison abolition if they just tried to send mail to an inmate even once

[muppethole-deactivated20240312]

for almost a year now i've been trying to send a copy of the literary magazine i edit to an inmate who requested one. his prison prohibits any written materials that so much as mention drugs, weapons, criminal activity, or malicious violence of any sort. i've been poring over what's available of the 95 volumes my magazine has printed over the years, and of those found 3 that might pass inspection. the first two were sent back undelivered two months after i sent them because one had a short story that alluded to a playground fight, and the other a poem that used the word "fist" in a nonviolent context. The third was returned for the stated reason that its contents depicted the use of firearms. i reread the entire issue, there's not a single gun mentioned in all its 120 pages.

while going back and forth with this guy trying to figure out how to get a copy of the magazine in his hands, two of my letters bounced back for unspecified reasons. i learned that inmates are not given their correspondents' original letters, but scanned copies, often poorly reproduced and sometimes illegible. these people aren't even granted the ink their loved ones used to pen their messages, or to hold in their hands the paper their loved ones held, if they're able to receive their words at all.

[satusepiida]

Something that bothered me a lot during visitation with my dad was it wasn't even in person?? They basically made us drive all the way out there to do a video call. Like in shows you see the bulletproof glass between ppl who have to talk thru a phone, it was kinda like that but we didn't even get to be in the same room it was a line of screens set into the wall. Everything about prisons is made to be dehumanizing.

[morlock-holmes]

If you don't have people you know in Prison, your naive assumption is likely to be that they are there to hold and rehabilitate the prisoners.

In fact, prison policy across the country involves a tremendous amount of gratuitous, unmotivated torture of the inmates.

[spectrogenic]

prisons exist to isolate people and restrictions on mail serve to further that goal. break the isolation, fight the mailrooms, write to a queer incarcerated person*:

for the UK:

Bent Bars Project

*no one deserves to be isolated in prison, queer or not; these programs focus on queer prisoners because a) existing on additional axes of oppression, they may experience an intensified version of the same dehumanization everyone does in prison, b) it might be easier to start writing to someone with whom you already share one thing in common.

[girlsludged]

please consider writing to Prarieland defendants Autumn Hill and Meagan Morris, they are both trans lesbians incarcerated in men's prisons for protesting an ICE facility

prosecution established affiliation by way of defendants having fucking anarchist zines, the kind of shit you see in a punk house. this is what they want and are willing to pursue for all of us who aren't willing to lay down and die, imprisonment and torture and the absolute stripping of our dignity (the govt gleefully included their deadnames in a press release yesterday; Morris' public defender has consistently deadnamed and misgendered her despite her legal name change)

there is no one who will protect us except us, and if our sisters are lost to us and forgotten as soon as they are grabbed by the prison system (ie if the system is allowed to work as intended) then we are failing, and we are woefully unprepared for a world where they start taking more of us

Autumn Hill - Support the Prairieland Defendants

Autumn is a loving wife and is interested in religious history and mythology. Write to her at FMC Fort Worth.

Meagan Morris - Support the Prairieland Defendants

Meagan Elizabeth Morris is loved by her wife housemates, and dogs. Her name was legally changed in 2007, but the federal complaint used her

[genderoutlaws]

while i'm on the subject of trans people trapped in the prison system, i'd also like to highlight the PCP. if you have the time (and it's not really a huge time commitment if you don't want it to be. you can write once a month!) to be a penpal to a queer person currently imprisoned, it means a lot to maintain connection to the community and to the outside world, especially to those serving life sentences. just remember to read their guidelines before sending your initial email to the org.

[queerprisonersolidarity]

hi that's us! thanks so much for shouting us out. being a penpal can be so much more than just writing letters -- it can be a lifeline for queer and trans people in prison, who are much more likely to be isolated from people outside compared to their cishet counterparts. sometimes, the institution knowing that an incarcerated person is receiving mail can protect them from grave mistreatment. finally, we have been hearing from trans people inside that they are not being given information about the executive orders, injunctions, laws, etc. that are affecting their lives, and having someone who can provide that information makes such a big difference.

we have over 2600 people waiting to be matched up, please do check us out.

[queerprisonersolidarity]

[queerprisonersolidarity]

[queerprisonersolidarity]

[queerprisonersolidarity]

[queerprisonersolidarity]

Prisoner Correspondence Project