Pride and Prison
- Jun 30
- 3 min read
This is the first thing you should know: LGBTQ+ people are nearly 3 times as likely to be incarcerated as straight-identifying people. And for lesbian and bisexual women, the numbers are even worse – they are more than four times as likely to be arrested than their straight counterparts. While there are many reasons for this beyond mere stigma, the prevalence of subsistence sex work among members of queer and trans communities, drug law enforcement specifically targeted to unhoused populations, and the criminalization of homelessness itself are certainly factors.
Because the second thing to know, is of the unhoused youth population, 40% are LGBTQ+. As a result of unstable or unaccepting home environments, many queer and trans youth are forced to live on the street, and the intensifying criminalization of homelessness carries many of them straight into the juvenile criminal punishment system (where solidly 20% of the population identifies as LGBTQ+).
Additionally, LGBTQ+ people are at greater risk for violence – physical and sexual -- when incarcerated, by both fellow inmates and prison staff, if not directly then by being intentionally placed in situations leaving them vulnerable to abuse by fellow prisoners. And many prison staff place LGBTQ+ people in solitary confinement, to “protect” them or avoid blame for instances of violence. According to one 2015 survey 85% of respondents said they had been placed in solitary confinement at some point, and over 50% of those surveyed had spent over two years in isolation. This is despite the fact that the long-lasting harms of prolonged solitary confinement are very well-documented.
Finally, 1 in 6 trans people have been incarcerated – and nearly half of all Black trans people. Compare that to 2010 numbers of around 3% of the total U.S. adult population ever in prison, and nearly 10% of Black adults. And once imprisoned, the picture becomes bleaker for trans individuals – 44% have been denied access to requested hormones (and this was even before the current Administration), and despite PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 - Prison Rape Elimination Act | PREA) standards against it, the majority of correctional facilities continue to house people based on their sex assigned at birth, or genital anatomy.
There is very little support for reentry for LGBTQ+ people, and particularly for trans people. However, the organization Black & Pink runs one such support, the Lydon House, located in Omaha, Nebraska. It is the only residential reentry program in the Midwest that primarily serves trans people – of the ten residents it has had so far, 8 have been trans women. And unlike most transitional housing programs, residents are able to stay for as long as they need. Unfortunately, only three residents can live there at a time, so the help and safety it can provide is limited. I recommend watching this fantastic piece about it that PBS did in 2022: Incarcerated LGBTQ Americans find little to no support system upon release | PBS News
And, for help that is closer to home, Beyond These Walls supports reentry for LGBTQ+ individuals in the tri-county Oregon area (Reentry Support — Beyond These Walls)
In Seattle, the Lavender Rights Project is a Black Trans feminist organization that focuses on “dismantling oppressive systems that disproportionately harm Black communities”. Their Decrim Department works on dismantling the policing and criminal punishment system (Decrim Department — Lavender Rights Project).
But more support for our queer and trans neighbors is needed – until we can change the current carceral and criminal punishment system, we at least need to be thinking of ways to better assist the LGBTQ+ community with a safer, softer landing place afterward.
Sources/Further Reading:
Authored by Stacey Breitberg
