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Frederic Brown, Warden Dear Warden Brown: The HIV and Hepatitis C in Prison Committee of California Prison Focus regularly conducts legal visits with transgender and gender-variant prisoners, most of whom are HIV/HCV positive, at your institution. It has come to our attention that prisoners who identify as transgender or gender-variant, meaning prisoners who are housed at CSP-Corcoran but who are female-identified or other-than-male identified, are being denied access to appropriate medical and mental healthcare services. In addition, we are concerned about several situations in which these individuals have been subjected to derisive comments from some of the staff. We urge you to investigate this matter immediately and to implement changes that will adequately address this issue. The standards of care for people who identify as transgender or gender-variant are well documented in the outside medical world. These include access to hormone therapy, appropriate psychological counseling, bras, and other supportive underclothing that would enable the individual to live as their self-identified gender. At CSP-Corcoran, there is no protocol in place to enable transgender and gender-variant prisoners to access any gender-related healthcare services. Prisoners who have requested hormones in the past have been denied, even after being diagnosed with Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID), for which the standard treatment is long-term hormone therapy. In fact, two years ago, three prisoners at your institution had a telemedicine conference with Dr. Lori Kohler, who diagnosed all of them as having GID. Further, she prescribed hormone therapy to all three prisoners (two of whom had been on hormone therapy prior to their arrival at CSP-Corcoran). These prescriptions were later blocked by then Chief Medical Officer Dr. Yee, who failed to explain his actions. Denial of continuing necessary medical treatment for a pre-existing condition, and of beginning medical therapy for a newly-diagnosed condition, is in direct violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which proscribes against cruel and unusual punishment, as well as California Constitution, Article 1, Section 17 and California Penal Code, Section 2652. State courts have also held that hormone therapy is a necessary medical treatment for transgender prisoners. Currently, there is one prison in California that offers targeted medical and mental healthcare services to the transgender and gender-variant prisoner population. California Medical Facility-Vacaville provides access to counseling, hormone therapy, and supportive clothing for male-to-female transgender prisoners. As far as we are aware, there have been no negative repercussions as a result. In fact, it would be logical to assume that expanding medical and mental healthcare in this way would only improve conditions inside by working to ensure that all prisoners have access to appropriate healthcare services. Finally, we understand through our legal investigations that transgender and gender-variant prisoners at CSP-Corcoran have been subjected to homophobic and demeaning remarks by several COs employed there. This type of abuse only exacerbates the severe mental anguish these prisoners deal with due to the lack of appropriate mental and medical services. For example, during a forceful cell extraction, SHU inmate Lonnie Williams K-52702 was repeatedly called “faggot” and “punk” by CO K. Blattel as he was pepper-sprayed, beaten, stripped naked, and placed in chains. According to your staff, Williams was cell extracted because they were “worried” that he was suicidal. Surely, this is no way to treat individuals who may possibly be suicidal. Other instances where transgender and gender-variant prisoners have been verbally and physically humiliated in the course of their everyday activities are also noted in our files. Though not all cases are as extreme as Mr. Williams’s, we feel every case is preventable and should not be tolerated. The reciprocation of respect between inmates and staff is duly mandated in California Penal Code, Section 5058, and as such, we expect full participation from both parties. If your office would like further information regarding sensitivity trainings around transgender issues in a correctional setting, please contact our office and we will connect you with Veronika Cauley who has done such trainings with the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department. In closing, we urge you investigate these important issues immediately and to implement changes that will adequately resolve these problems. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Sincerely,
Kevin Weaver |
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