Prison(er) Advocacy and Activism Resources Series - Trans

This post to appear regularly will deal with services, organizations, and grassroots advocacy going on in Canada.  (may occasionally include info about radical international advocacy)

Trans Prisoners - New Volunteer Community Service Initiative

 
Picture Retrieved from: http://article.wn.com

The Prisoner Correspondence Project is an initiative out of Concordia University in Montreal.  One of the main functions of this particular project is to support LGBTQ folks in prison  through pen-pal correspondence. The Prisoner Correspondence Project links imprisoned LGTBQ people with "free" LGBTQ folks outside.

This resource is particularly important because there are very few services for TransGender persons inside, and because they are often one of the most severely marginalised groups - a fact exacerbated by the particular forms of abuse they are subjected to inside which put them at increased risk of violence by both staff and other prisoners. 

Also on offer to organisations outside the prison system and which serve Trans Gender and all LGBTQ people, are a number of workshops on what safe sex looks like in places which limit access to condoms, and another workshop deals with the particular forms of criminalisation that Trans persons face and the connections socially to discrimination.

The web page also provides a pretty extensive list of really unique written resources for interested parties to learn more about these issues!

Go to http://www.prisonercorrespondenceproject.com/ to learn more.

To learn more about day to day life for incarcerated Trans prisoners you may want to check out the movie "Cruel and Unusual".  Here is the trailer:

 

Heres another documentary (10 min total) from the US on Trans Women speaking of their experiences