Transgender Inmate Sues California Prison

[Commander CMG]

Alexis Giraldo was born as a man and takes hormones to feminize her appearance, a fact she says prison officials didn't care about even as her male cellmate repeatedly raped and beat her.

Giraldo is suing the state prison system and several guards over the state's policy of assigning inmates like her to men's or women's prisons depending on whether they have had a sex change.

"Prisons are violent places, and male prisons are especially violent places," said Greg Walston, a lawyer who took Giraldo's for free and asked a jury this week for unspecified damages. "You take that boiling cauldron and you put one woman in there — which is exactly what happened here — and it's like throwing a fresh piece of meat into a lion's cage."

Giraldo, 30, claims Folsom State Prison guards ignored her complaints and returned her to the same cell until she was assaulted again, then placed in protective custody and moved to another facility.

Giraldo is suing the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for emotional distress and violating her constitutional right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. She has asked Superior Court Judge Ellen Chaitin to order prison officials to come up with a new system for housing transgender inmates.

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[Bill Hill]

Transgender! Robots in disguise..

I know it's for kids but it still looks good..

[DДrk_Lotu§]

male and female prisons are violent for inmates period people are abused all the time i think it would be just as bad if "she" was placed in a female prison

[swtp]

male and female prisons are violent for inmates period people are abused all the time i think it would be just as bad if "she" was placed in a female prison

Thats true, if they would have sent her to a womans prison she would still need to defend herself! does she think rape doesn,t happen in a womans prison? Boy she,d be in for a very rude awaking!

[Bill Hill]

Does she think rape doesn,t happen in a womans prison? Boy she,d be in for a very rude awaking!

Just out of interest, how do you know it goes on?

Homer Simpson voice mmmh female prisons.....droool

[punish3ment]

Transgender! Robots in disguise..

Lol, thats exactally what I thought!

Anyway, its hers (or his?) own fault for getting into prison in the first place

[Talon]

Are the idiots in charge allowing this law suit to go ahead aware that jails aren't supposed to be nice?

[Moondoggy]

When my brother did time for bank robbery, I made it very clear to the warden that if anything happened to him while he did his time that I would hold him personally responsible for it. They put my brother in Isolation for his entire stay. Prison is about depriving one of the social norm and to remove them from society in hopes they will get the point and not re-offend. Prison should not be a bout rape for either gender. That is cruel and unusual punishment and the system should be reformed to keep this happening to anyone.

[+joc]

I think I saw an episode just like this on Law and Order.

[Walter Sullivan]

I saw that episode too.

[KingTomis]

Heh, I did too.

[swtp]

Just out of interest, how do you know it goes on?

Homer Simpson voice mmmh female prisons.....droool

One of my best friends did six years because she was with her boyfriend when he pulled a robbery and killed a guy, She was raped often and in ways that nearly killed her! It got so bad that she,s not able to have children! And i know of another woman who told me how much she enjoyed raping the new girls when she was in prison,That chick scared me at the best of times,i hated being around her but we had mutual friends on the street. She,s dead now , the cops found her murdered in the trunk of a stolen car. And i could tell you a few more stories, but that would take too long!

[DДrk_Lotu§]

my uncle was a member of the hells angels chapter in Burnaby he's doing life in prison now which i wont go into detail people were shot drugs were found hes gone and I'm happy he is but he's told me many stories of fish in the prison who are raped or beaten and guards just turn a blind eye it's wrong yes but it happens and their criminals so i don't have too much sympathy

[glorybebe]

my uncle was a member of the hells angels chapter in Burnaby he's doing life in prison now which i wont go into detail people were shot drugs were found hes gone and I'm happy he is but he's told me many stories of fish in the prison who are raped or beaten and guards just turn a blind eye it's wrong yes but it happens and their criminals so i don't have too much sympathy

It's really horrible to say, but i totally agree with you. They took knew the results if they got caught, and they did the crime anyway. It is the actual innocent people who get railroaded into prison that I feel sorry for, they don't deserve it.

[DДrk_Lotu§]

I agree but the amount of possible innocent inmates is pretty small but that's beside the point it is a shame if they are beaten or raped and are incarcerated for no reason but when it happens to a true criminal all i can do is shrug my shoulders they get to eat three times a day and have a bed to sleep on when there are people that struggle day to day to make ends meet

[glorybebe]

I agree but the amount of possible innocent inmates is pretty small but that's beside the point it is a shame if they are beaten or raped and are incarcerated for no reason but when it happens to a true criminal all i can do is shrug my shoulders they get to eat three times a day and have a bed to sleep on when there are people that struggle day to day to make ends meet

Atually, that was a conversation we had in college, how if you got thrown in prison for trafficking narcotics you could get your BFA for free and get out of prison without any student loan debts. Pretty sad when you look at it that way.

[Jeenuh]

i watched a thing on this on tv.

a lot of the transgendered people can't get work, so they resort to prostitution.

and thats why they get put in prison. she won't win the case, you all can stop complaining about it.

it is sad though and nobody would like to be in that position.

[Dusty Digital]

Maybe I'm naive but I'm gonna have to disagree with you people on this. If you think it's all the same whether she's in a male or in a female prison - you can follow that logic to it's final conclusion and decide that all prisoners should be put into the same prison - no need to separate men and women. Imagine if this was a "born" woman. Would it really be alright to put her in a men's prison where her chances getting raped are far higher than in a womens' prison?

Furthermore I'm ready to take my naivety even further, but I believe that aknowledging and accepting rapes and the brutal life inside a prison is the same as accepting a very cruel and unusual punishment. Sending a transgender inmate into a male prison is practically sentencing her to get raped. If we believe that it's alright that these things happen to these people because they're criminals, they will never be anything but. I'm quite willing to wager that getting raped, sodomized or beaten does nothing towards making you a functional member of society. Quite the opposite.

[Mekorig]

In theory, a prision its a place where you are excluded from society for the crimes you have done, and the state tries to rehabilitate you to re-enter the society has a good member again.

Sadly, the prision have turned in no more than a body-storage place, where you are left to root until your sentence is complete. Inside these places, complex power and social relations are created, and the jail guards are part of these relations, be complices or the ones whit "power" in it.

Like the criminal or not, he is a part of the society, and he need to be respected for that. And utting his/her life in danger, is a very cruel and unusual punishment.

I think this inmate have a solid case.