Jul 4
The Justice Department is seeking records involving Andrea Balcer, a transgender woman housed at the Maine Correctional Center.
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The Justice Department is seeking records involving Andrea Balcer, a transgender woman housed at the Maine Correctional Center.
“My freedom feels amazing,” she tells Them
How is the life of trans women on Brazil’s male prisons?
This Sunday, a news broadcast channel from my country showed a news report about trans women living in male prisons. The interviewer is a well known doctor, Drauzio Varella, who worked as a volunteer in jails for more than 30 years. The news report was really well produced, and I would like to share some captions and stories with Tumblr.
They interviewed people from many different jails, all of them where trans women have to share the same facilities with men.
“I think that, in a certain way, the jail is part of the life story of trans people. Because there’s a pressure to make trans people be considered marginals”
Doctor Drauzio Varella states, in the beginning. He gives health lectures and advice to trans women in prisons.
Thais Pereira de Lima was kicked out of her house and had to prostitute herself for a living, at the age of 15. She had to deal with many hardships, like starvation and drugs, that led her to jail.
In Igarassu’s Penitentiary, where Thais is currently held, trans women can wear whatever clothes they want and are free to wander around all the facilities. The trans prisioners have their own cells, separated from the men’s.
“When I arrived here, in Igarassu’s Penitentiary, my life changed completely. And for what reason? The opportunity of many things that, even outside, I didn’t have.”
Thais is talking about work. She thinks that she found more respect inside the jail than outside.
“Nowadays, it’s rare for you to see a trans working inside the Court. Working inside a shopping mall.”
She concludes. Thais job is to teach her students how to bake pastries.
“In the jail, you are forced to prostitute yourself for a toothpaste, a soap, a meal.”
Admits another prisoner, Susy de Oliveira Santos. She thinks that there’s no way trans women can avoid prostitution when they first arrive at the jail. The prejudice is too strong, especially when those trans women also admit having a STD. Susy is HIV infected and had tuberculosis.
From the 82 trans women Doctor Drauzio tested on Carandiru Penitentiary, 79% were infected with AIDS. Drauzio says that when he was giving a lecture on sexual health to the prisioners back at Carandiru, one of the girls revealed that there was a lack of condoms in the prison. On that same day, October 2nd of 1992, the Carandiru massacre happened.
It took Susy 4 years to start working in the Pinheiros Prison, as a manufacturer.
Lolla Ferreira Lima takes a course on make-up. Lolla refers to herself in the portuguese masculine form.
“When I talk about myself, I use the masculine form because the prejudice against me already started at home. My dad doesn’t accept me as Lolla [...] The body on its own looks like a man’s, right? But my spirit, I think it’s a woman. I feel like a woman.”
The prisoner had to stop taking hormones because they aren’t allowed inside the jail.
On Tacaimbó Penitentiary, a love story took place. A trans woman (who didn’t have her name revealed by the news report), met her current husband, Robson, on the prison.
“My dad always wanted to dress me as a boy. Until today, in the jail, he brings me some clothes, he brings me masculine clothes. I give them to my husband. And that hurts me. You can make me wear a suit, dress me exactly like a boy, I will feel like a woman anyway.”
She came out of the closet late, she explains, and now is almost 40 years old. She also reveals that she had her first sexual experience with Robson.
The couple had a Christian marriage, inside the prison.
The majority of trans women on Brazilian prisons are 30 to 45 years old, an the most common crime commited by them is theft, according to the Woman, Family and Human Rights Ministry of Brazil. Robbery was the cause of Lolla’s detention.
In the end of the news report, she was released of the prison after serving the sentence. The documentary then proceeded to show a bit of Lolla’s daily life. She plans to stay a while in her dad’s house.
“Now I know I am within society. There [in the prison] I had a type of freedom. [...] You feel that people aren’t welcoming to you the way they should”
She says while not wearing any make up on. Doctor Drauzio says that Lolla told him that, in the prison, she felt more free, she could be trans. In the street, she faced so many hardships as a trans person, that she preferred to dress as a man and assume a masculine front.
The news report comes to an end, as Lolla sells water bottles in the street, dressing a clown costume.
Watch the original news report in portuguese, here.
Images by Marconi Matos / Globo
Help Support Incarnated Trans Native Prisoner Michelle Rose.
(If you’re not able to donate plz share this post.)
Recently Michelle Rose's most valuable possessions were stolen: her T.V., her electric shaver (essential for maintaining autonomy and dignity as a trans women in prison) and all of her coffee!!!
If want to donate money to her commissary and read more about her follow this link.
In all of the time she's been imprisoned, Michelle Rose has never received money in her commissary and no one has ever visited her.
Michelle Rose is Navajo and grew up on the Navajo Reservation a.k.a Navajo Nation. She has been imprisoned in an Arizona State Prison Complex for almost 4 years and has 3.5 more to go. She and her friends took a car that wasn't theirs on a joyride, and for that she will serve an outrageous 7+ years.
From the Lib Dem 2017 manifesto http://libdems.org.uk/manifesto
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