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Even though I've had positive experiences in a church, and with some religious people, it's still feels strange sometimes to praise someone who occupies a high position in the heirarchy of a long-established religious institution. Most such sects and denominations have their histories of prejudice, persecution and violence against women, LGBT people and members of minority groups who aren't represented in local (or, in some cases, worldwide) congregations. Oh, and let's not forget those who challenge--with facts--long-held tenets of said institution's dogma.
Sometimes they seem--at least to me--disingenuous when they preach tolerance and inclusiveness or when they say that their faith really is compatible after all with what science has taught us. And, sometimes, when the leaders of those institutions make such pronouncements, I have to wonder what they were doing when their religious bodies were collaborating with secular authorities that kidnapped, tortured and murdered people simply because they happened to be of the "wrong" ethnicity, gender or political affiliation.
The previous sentence summed up what I thought when Francis became the Pope nearly two years ago. In his native Argentina, Church officials collaborated with--or did nothing--when the military regime was "disappearing" those deemed a threat. There doesn't seem to be any record of open or even covert opposition on his part though, to his credit, he was working with the poor, something he has done throughout his career as a priest.
That work is one of the reasons why I have become more and more willing to believe the Pope when he expresses acceptance ("Who am I to judge?") for LGBT people. Said expression is not only in his words: He has actually met with gay, lesbian and trans people. From what I've read and heard, all have come away convinced that he is "for real".
Now I see more evidence of Pope Francis' commitment to the spiritual principles that, supposedly, Jesus embodied in living among the poor, oppressed and despised. Tomorrow, he is going to have lunch with 90 prisoners at the Giuseppe Salvia Detention Center. Among those inmates will be some from a ward housing gay, transgender and HIV-infected detainees. They were selected through a raffle from among 1900 inmates at the center.
After the lunch, the Pope will meet with each of the prisoners individually.
What's most impressive about this, at least to me, is that none of it was originally on his schedule. He requested the lunch and meetings, and used the occasion to reiterate the Church's official position that no crime deserves the death penalty.
I'm no expert on criminal justice, so take what I'm about to say for what it's worth.
Here goes: I think that any society that imprisons people has to decide what the purpose of incarceration is.
In the US, as in many other countries, we call our system "corrections". From what I understand of psychology, such a term implies that the system is behavioristic in its approach: The behavior of the person arrested is to be corrected. Or, more ideally, some underlying condition or issue that led to the behavior will be corrected.
Those familiar with the system--inmates as well as wardens and guards--say that it almost never happens. Somehow that doesn't surprise me, but that's a discussion for another blog (or book or class!) led by someone more knowledgeable than I am.
Anyway, in other places and times, imprisonment was more frankly a means of vengeance. In the 18th and 19th Centuries, prisons were called "penitentiaries", or places of penance--in other words, a kind of purgatory where the inmate worked off his or her sins.
So why am I talking about these things on this blog? Well, it matters greatly to transgender inmates, most of whom are arrested for doing sex work or other relatively minor crimes. If the purpose of prison is to rehabilitate or reform someone, the inmate's humanity must be respected. Just as a doctors who don't respect their patients have no hope of helping them heal, any system that dehumanizes the people who enter it cannot make those people better than they were when they were brought into it.
Yasir Naqvi understands this. He is the Correction Services Minister in the Canadian province of Ontario. Yesterday, he announced that inmates will be placed in Ontario prisons according to the gender by which they identify themselves rather than their physical sex characteristics. So, for example, someone identified as male on her birth certificate will be incarcerated in a women's prison if she identifies herself as such.
I know that some believe that prisoners are not human beings and will howl that such treatment is "coddling". But they should think about how their tax money is being spent. If something might help prevent recidivism, why not try it--especially if it doesn't cost any more money than doing something that doesn't work.
A 16-year-old is imprisoned as a form of therapy.
Sounds good so far, right? Well, it gets even better.
The teenager in question has been a ward of the state since the age of five. During the next decade, this teen was beaten, raped, denied food and trafficked for sex--and endured homelessness.
Oh, wait, there's more: This kid is in a boys' detention center. But she's a girl.
Yes, she's transgender. Joette Katz, the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families, recommended the detention of the teenager, who is identified only as Jane Doe. Ms. Katz's reasoning--impeccable, as she used to be a judge, right?---is that Ms. Doe was "too violent" for the juvenile facilities in which she had been housed.
Forget that, according to some, the charges against Ms. Doe were overstated. Even if they weren't, staffers at such facilities are accustomed to much worse than Ms. Doe dished out. Besides, how is locking up someone--in solitary confinement, no less--going to make someone whose anger issues are probably linked to PTSD and having to deal with her gender identity less volatile?
Ms. Katz hasn't said. So, Ms. Doe's lawyers are filing an amended suit in which Ms. Doe's Constitutional rights are being violated when prison staffers and officials refer to her by her birth name and male pronouns, force her to wear boys' uniforms and don't allow her to wear wigs and makeup. These charges were added to the one that said that her Constitutional rights were being violated when she was kept in solitary confinement.
Whoaa...Solitary confinement? In a boys' detention facility? Even though she was never charged with any indictable offense before the incaluculably wise Ms. Katz put her in prison?
Such a gem of jurisprudence, coming from a former judge. And people wonder why there are so many lawsuits--including the one on behalf of Jane Doe.
George Orwell would've had a field day with this: Putting someone in prison can be therapeutic.
Someone actually said that. Not in those words, of course: After all, the person who gave us that pearl of wisdom is a bureaucrat. That means that if she ever had the ability to speak forthrightly, it was beaten out of her or she gave it up willingly in order to preserve her lifestyle.
The "someone" in question is Joette Katz, Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. Before becoming Commissioner, she was a judge. That experience, it seems, honed the skills she's using in her current position, especially when it comes to cases like that of a 16-year-old transgender identified only as "Jane Doe".
Granted, she assaulted staff members at juvenile facilities in which she's been housed. But staffers in such places are used to such things, and there's no indication that her attacks--if she indeed perpetrated them--were any more intense than others they've experienced. And, it could be argued that with the proper care, Ms. Doe won't attack anybody again.
However, Ms. Katz is accused of overstating Ms. Doe's offenses--and of not mentioning that one of the staffers involved in one of the incidents has been terminated. Worse, Katz never mentioned that Ms. Doe has been a ward of the state through most of her life, during which she has suffered beatings, been raped and denied food. Moreover, she has been homeless and trafficked for sex. If she isn't suffering from even the mildest form of PTSD, Ms. Doe must be one of the most resilient (or emotionally numb) human beings ever to walk the face of the Earth.
Now tell me: How would putting her in a male prison for adults--and keeping her in solitary confinement, to boot--help her to recover from the trauma she no doubt carries? And how would such incarceration make her less likely to assault others (if, indeed, she actually did such a thing), especially given that she has never been charged with a crime.
Think about that: a sixteen-year-old who was removed from her mother's custody at age four, locked up--no, worse, placed in isolation--without having committed any indictable offense. Could such a young person end up becoming a criminal simply from the anger issues she'd develop over such an ordeal. D'ya think?
But Joette Katz, the former judge, somehow believes that prison personnel--and fellow inmates of a gender different from hers--will accomplish what psychiatrists, nurses, counselors and other employees of the juvenile facilities in which she's spent much of her life couldn't do for her.
In other words, this estimable Ms. Katz believes that prison will give a young, vulnerable trans person the therapy she needs.
Oh, you're accusing me of sarcasm now, are you? All right, I'll lay off and let you tell me whether, instead of looking out for Ms. Doe's best interests, the high commissioner is using her as a bargaining chip to placate state legislators who oversee her budget.
Could it be that Ms. Doe has gone from being pimped on the streets to being pimped by a megalomaniacal state official?
Nothing a little time alone among men won't cure, right?
New Zealand is like most other countries in that male-to-female transgender inmates are confined to men's prisons.
Unlike most other countries, New Zealand has a government that is reviewing such a policy. This is a result of report from the University of Auckland's Equal Justice Project, which documented the danger of sexual assualt such prisoners face.
While the government's willingness to review the policy is laudable, Green Party Member of Parliament Jan Logue says that action is needed urgently because "when we lock someone in prison, we have an obligation to ensure that they are safe".
Whether or not one believes that the government should pay for the hormones, psychotherapy or surgery of someone in prison, I still think one has to agree that prisoners should be safe while they are in prison if one of the goals of incarceration is rehabilitation. Granted, prisons don't always achieve this goal, and perhaps not all prisoners are rehabilitatable. Still, the prison environment must be safe for anyone for whom there is any hope of change.
Also, while I believe that we are responsible for our actions, I know that having to deal with the ostracism, prejudice and even violence that many of us (as well as members of other "minority" groups) face is enough to drive some of us to desperation and rage--or to commit crimes or even violence in self-defense.
I hope that the New Zealand government's willingness to review their policy will result in changing it and that more jurisdictions--including those here in the US--will do likewise.
Her own father reported her to the Cuban authorities. During the 1980's, she spent two years in prison for her "dangerousness."
This month, she was elected as a delegate to the municipal government of Caibarien in the province of Villa Clara. Her office is more or less equivalent to that of a city councilor in the United States. Now she is eligible to be selected as a representative to the Cuban Parliament next year.
Adela Hernandez is now the first known transgender person to be elected to public office in Cuba. Although she is known as a female to those who have worked and lived alongside her, the Cuban government still classifies her as male, for she has not had gender reassignment surgery.
Even so, her election represents a change in attitudes about homosexuality and gender variance that simply would have been unimaginable through much of Fidel Castro's regime. Interestingly, although Castro allied himself with the Soviet Union and turned himself, and his country, to Communism, his persecution and imprisonment of LGBT people has more in common with such right-wing military (or militaristic) dictatorships as those of Franco in Spain and the Perons in Argentina.
Interestingly, Spain became one of the first countries to legalize same-sex unions. And Argentina not only did the same; it passed what may be the most liberal laws regarding gender identity in the entire world. Were she in Argentina, Ms. Hernandez could have herself classified as male and would probably be allowed to have gender-reassignment surgery, for which the government would pay.
To be fair, I should point out that Cuba's national healthcare system has been providing gender-reassignment surgery free of charge since 2007. I don't know why Ms. Hernandez has not had it. Perhaps the screening process has even more hurdles than it has in other countries. Or, perhaps, she has some other mitigating circumstance, or simply wishes to live as the woman she has always known she is. (She's been living as female since she was a child.)
Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see what, if any, influence her election has on the lives and treatment of transgender people in Cuba.
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