Black Trans Woman Sues Over Alleged Failures in Incarceration
A trans woman who was incarcerated in Georgia has filed a lawsuit alleging that officials not only did not protect her from sexual assault and harm but inflicted it on her themselves.
Ashley Diamond filed the lawsuit against several employees of the Georgia Department of Corrections and its facilities, accusing the defendants of denying her treatments deemed medically necessary and housing her in a men's prison despite being aware that it posed an increased risk to her safety. Because of her housing situation, the lawsuit alleges, Diamond has repeatedly been the victim of violent yet foreseeable sexual assaults.
“Being a woman in a men's prison is a nightmare,” Diamond said in a news release Monday. “I've been stripped of my identity. I never feel safe. Never. I experience sexual harassment on a daily basis, and the fear of sexual assault is always a looming thought. I'm bringing this lawsuit to bring about change on behalf of a community that deserves the inherent dignity to simply exist.”
According to ‘CNN’, Diamond was arrested in 2011 for pawning a saw she had stolen, charged with burglary and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In the 12 months she was in GDC custody since 2019, Diamond has been assaulted 14 times, the lawsuit filed on her behalf by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center says.
“Ms. Diamond repeatedly notified GDC officials ... of her sexual assaults and begged to be transferred to a safer facility. Rather than heed her urgent requests for safe housing, GDC officials instructed Ms. Diamond to 'guard her booty' and 'be prepared to fight,’” according to the lawsuit. “They also openly acknowledged that GDC was unable to keep Ms. Diamond safe so long as she remained a transgender woman housed in men's facilities.”
The lawsuit says Diamond is housed in a cell that does not lock to prevent intruders, and it describes several instances of abuse during her time in GDC custody, including one where an inmate hid waiting for her in a utility closet to assault her, and a corrections officer allegedly admitted she had been warned that the incarcerated man had been hiding there before the attack, the lawsuit said. Some sexual attacks Diamond experienced left her injured and bleeding.
This is not the first time Diamond has expressed concern about GDC's treatment of her as a trans woman. “The abuse and neglect that Ms. Diamond has experienced are all the more egregious because Defendants have willfully ignored a prior judicial finding that the very same conduct Defendants repeat qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and a violation of clearly established constitutional rights,” the lawsuit says.
Diamond filed her first lawsuit against the department in 2015 while incarcerated. The case was ultimately settled, but during litigation the court ruled that it was unconstitutional for the department to fail to protect her.
In addition, the ruling found that it was medically necessary for the department to provide Diamond with continued hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria, a condition recognised by the American Psychiatric Association. The decision made changes to medical policy for trans people in the GDC, the lawsuit said.
Read related myGwork articles here:
Trans Women Will No Longer Be Incarcerated In Men’s Prisons In California
Trans Women Fight for Their Rights In Colorado’s Prisons
Russian Trans Woman Sentenced To Three Years In Men’s Prison
Trans Activist Faces Harm In Men’s Prison
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