(upbeat music)
(chiming music)
(singing)
♪ Why ♪
♪ Must I be ♪
♪ Discouraged ♪
♪ And why must the shadows come ♪
♪ And why must my heart ♪
♪ Be lonely ♪
♪ When it longs ♪
- I began taking hormones
at the age of 16.
I've always had my mom
and my father's approval
of being a transwoman,
so I've never had to
fight with them on those issues.
It was just always about
getting my life together
and stop making so many
careless mistakes like this.
Ending up in prison if you
know what I mean (laughs).
(pensive music)
- Four out of every five
transgenders that are attacked
are African-American transgenders.
I was born Robert
Brennan Foster, you know,
since I was a child I
felt like I was a girl,
and despite knowing myself,
the world told me different.
And if I wanted to avoid
problems, I had to give the world
what it wanted to see.
And the world wanted to see a boy.
When you're faced with
getting put in the hospital,
getting your ribs broken,
your face caved in,
getting put through walls,
you're going to pretty much conform.
My father, literally, would
beat me sometimes everyday
just to get me to act like
a boy, to toughen me up.
- (Jazzie) We as trans women
are very challenged on a
daily basis here, especially
in this environment.
A lot of the programs here
are designed for male inmates
because this is still a male institution.
We have to fight
constantly to gain ground.
(wheels spinning)
- Right now what you're going
to do is get your heart rate
up, okay. Keep pedaling
and let's try and find
your heart rate.
- While I fought endlessly
to get the gym program up
and running it took a long journey,
it was a long fight, but I
was able to work with staff
on talking to the right
people to get it done.
To be able to let our hair
down, and wear our makeup,
and our gym shorts, and our tennis shoes,
and to be able to shoot hoop,
and do exercise programs.
So that we can have our
own safe environments to
be able to be who we are.
(high-fives)
- Good job peaches.
- (Kat). Hi, I'm Kat. I've
had a pretty decent week.
I had one little incident that
kind of perturbed me a little yesterday--
I don't think I can
every really say I feel
safe in prison, and in my
first prison I got raped.
And I immediately cut all my hair off,
grew facial hair.
So, we were showering
yesterday, and someone thought
it was appropriate to come
to the showers and start
talking to us about different things while
we're in the shower. A
staff member, someone,
started to call me out of
the shower to come over
to the door to talk to them.
- Did you invite them in?
- (Kat) No.
For me, with each prison, I
just became more aggressive
or masculine, and more brash, more rude.
I got into more problems than I needed,
but it kept me from having
to worry about getting raped.
(slow music)
- It was like living a role
as an actor, like a gut check.
Everyday I stepped out the
cell, I had to make sure
I had my attire right, the right walk,
the right approach, the
right timbre in my voice,
so I had to act like the
toughest person I could find.
And after a while, I just
couldn't do it no more.
I kind of started having
a little mental breakdown,
I just couldn't put that image on no more,
it was too painful.
- Glad to see all my sisters here today.
- I'm glad to be here today,
I'm glad that all of y'all
showed up today to come to
the group, to be supportive.
I love to see us in unity.
We're better in numbers,
I always say that.
And the other thing,
hopefully everybody received
their application for their
transgender identification
cards.
I see Ms. Henderson got hers today.
They will have your name on
there and what you identify as,
female, she, her.
- They still feel that we
are men. Cause I had an
officer that tell me,
"Well, you're still in
the man's prison, so you're a man."
So I had to write him up.
- On the good side, the
board addressed me as
a she and it was in my
transcripts. I was a she.
So, wow, that's kind of interesting, cause
I didn't think that was going to happen.
- If you're going to have
something implemented,
do it across the board and
actually train them to do it--
It's frustrating.
Institutionally, it's like,
trying to move a boulder,
they're very much used to
doing what they have,
processing things they way
they do it. So change
doesn't come easy here.
(chiming music)
- The sentence in coming
to state prison, that's
the punishment. There
shouldn't be an additional
punishment. You shouldn't be required to
identify a different
way simply because you
committed a crime and you've
been given a sentence.
You know, we're so accustomed
to being a binary system,
and what we've recognized
now is because we have
this very diverse
population, we also have to
make some accommodations.
- I'm Rachel. I was sitting in my cell,
with just my bra on and my
shorts, facing the wall.
That same A-W came in and read
me the Riot Act. Told me--
- (Amy) Being a transgender
person, even in the community,
can be difficult, and so
we are having the same
conversation in the prison setting.
- When I'm at my bed area, that's my area,
and I can dress as I feel.
- You're in a dorm setting, Ms. Rachel?
- (Rachel) Yep.
- Okay, in a dorm
setting, we as transgender
women should dress
accordingly. We are wearing
bras, panties, we must
have our night gowns on.
- I mean you know, as a woman--
- Yes.
- You should want to be
covered. I mean, for me,
I, you know, I keep my mumu on.
- Exactly.
- I mean I don't care how
hot it is, they're big
enough, they 'blowy', and at all times.
(somber music)
- If you don't learn to
pick up a weapon and fight,
like going with the
dudes, then die with them.
Then they're not going
to accept you, and if you
get cut, you just get cut, Whoopee-do.
- (Kat) I know some girls are
going to want to stay here
because they want to be around the men.
But if you identify as
a female, then I think
you should be housed
around females and I think
that would eliminate a lot of the problems
of being sexually assaulted,
of being raped, pressured.
- (Ava)"Do you want to
go to a women's prison?"
Well hell yeah!
Sex reassignment surgery,
I'd love to go over to
the female institution instead of this.
- I wouldn't like it cause I love men.
I'd rather be right here
where there's a bunch of men
instead of with a bunch of women.
Do you know what I mean?
(inmates debate)
- Oh, okay.
- (Jazzie) I just wanted
to share with y'all, I also
submitted the paperwork
in for more items to
be placed in the canteen for y'all.
Various foundations and
makeups will be added
to what we already have.
- (Kat) This is the first
prison I've ever been
to that actually had a
transgender community.
It was actually probably the biggest load
I've ever taken off my
shoulders when I just
stopped saying I was
going to be what everybody
else wanted me to be, and just be myself.
- I just wake up like this
(ambient music)
- We're picking up the
pieces of our lives.
What are we going to
do when we leave here?
We want to be protected
people in society, so we have
to start with ourselves,
building ourselves back up.
But I tell them constantly that
"You're beautiful. You're
a better person. You can
be anything you want to
be." You know, things
that their parents
should've been telling them.
- This one is for my
eyes, they're volumizing.
And I love my pinks.
(bag crinkles)
My mascara and I cover
up my grays with it.
(laughs)
Just a little bit on the
sides, on the sides, you know.
- (Amy) Our goal is to make
it normal. It's of course,
a lot of work because there's
a lot of policies that
have to be changed. That have been set for
very long time, but I
think we're getting there.
- There was a time when
being transgender in prison,
it was pretty hopeless, it was dark.
Perhaps I will never fully ever get there.
But I am content with
who I am and I feel like,
you know, I feel like I can
go on. I can keep going.
I can press on.
- (Kat) Now I'm becoming
more and more of me. And
the more I am, the less angry I am--
the more able I am to
just kind of love myself
and be gentler to other people.
♪ Amazing grace, amazing grace ♪
♪ Will always be ♪
♪ My song of praise ♪
(chuckles)
(inspirational music)
