Trans Women Fight for Their Rights In Colorado’s Prisons
The Transgender Law Centre has filed a suit on behalf of nearly 170 trans women “alleging systematic abuse inside Colorado’s male prisons in violation of the state’s anti-discrimination act,” ‘CBS News’ report. They also claim that the Colorado Department of Corrections, known as CDOC discriminates against women because go their gender identity.
“Most of these women are on hormone treatment and have expressed serious and grave concerns about their physical safety, primarily from sexual assault and sexual harassment," said lead attorney Paula Greisen. "Sex is a commodity in prison. These women are targets and they're being treated as chattel.”
Some of these women have attempted suicide to deal with their gender dysphoria, a clinical condition that the American Psychiatric Association defines as “the significant distress that accompanies the incongruence between a transgender person’s identity and their assigned sex.”
Greisen says there are many trans women who continue to have their rights violated with the current policies.
“There are still women who are housed with men and subjected to unsafe conditions. We did not see enough progress,” she told CBS News after a small win she had with a similar case where the CDOC transferred three trans women to a female facility ion Denver. “So [we] decided to proceed with the class action.”
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