TGI Prison Representation Network: Legal Volunteers Needed!

Transgender Gender-Variant & Intersex Justice Project (TGI Justice Project) is excited to announce the newly created TGI Prison Representation Network.  We recognize that TGI people in California prisons and jails are chronically underrepresented while facing pervasive systemic abuse, and plan to meet our community’s need for legal assistance by training and deploying pro bono attorneys to represent our incarcerated family.

TGI Justice Project will train all network volunteers in:

• TGI cultural competency
• Representing people in California prisons and jails including: 
  • Sending legal mail to correspondents in prisons and jails
  • Navigating CDCr* forms and procedures
  • Organizing and conducting prison visits, including simulated visit practice

In exchange:
Attorneys will dedicate 10 pro bono hours to directly represent incarcerated TGI people unable to otherwise find representation 

Together, we can ensure that the human rights of our TGI family are respected.

Work pro bono representatives can expect to engage in:

• Advocacy letters and calls
• Name and Gender ID Clinics and assistance inside
• Assistance with administrative appeal process
• PREA reporting
• Legal action to enforce rights

Common issue areas:

• Inadequate medical care
• Staff abuse
• Abuse by other incarcerated people
• Transfers
• Placement in solitary confinement
• Name and gender marker changes
• Access to gendered property items

Trainings will take place in San Francisco as CLEs on December 4th and 11th, in Los Angeles and San Diego during Spring of 2020, and individualized trainings can be scheduled at your firm.  

More information on the San Francisco CLEs can be found on this facebook event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/570285230448815/.  
This is the link to RSVP to the CLEs: http://tinyurl.com/TGIJP


​If you or your firm want to get involved, contact Alex Binsfeld (they/them pronouns) at: alex@tgijp.org 

*The lower case “r” is used intentionally to reflect the fact that the California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation does not engage in sufficient or meaningful rehabilitation work.
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