Transgender woman forced to serve time in men's prison was raped within hours

A transgender inmate says she was raped at a men’s prison hours after a judge threw out her request to block corrections officers from keeping her in a disciplinary unit.

Lindsay Saunders-Velez claims she had been threatened, harassed and assaulted since entering Colorado’s prison system last spring for violating her plea deal in a menacing case.

The prisoner filed a lawsuit against the state’s corrections agency in July, branding the system “discriminatory and dangerous” for transgender offenders.

Last month, her lawyers requested a judge not send Saunders-Velez to her jail’s “punishment pod” for a disciplinary infraction, saying she could end up with inmates who had tormented her.

The judge said the attorneys failed to prove an imminent risk, and rejected their request .

However, the 20-year-old was attacked during her time in the pod and needed more than a week in the infirmary recover, according to her attorney, Paula Greisen.

“This issue is not going to go away,” she said: “We’re going to fight it until these individuals are treated with the respect they deserve.”

Federal law requires prisons to individually asses where to house each transgender person, said Demoya Gordon, an attorney with LGBTQ+ advocacy group Lambda Legal’s transgender rights project.

But, she added, almost all facilities still housed inmates based on their genitalia or birth gender, resulting in many transgender women being abused or raped during their sentence.

Syl wrote:The world has gone mad.

Not long ago a man who had previously commited rape  was placed in a female prison, because he insisted on  now identifying as a woman.

gelico wrote:

Syl wrote:The world has gone mad.

Not long ago a man who had previously commited rape  was placed in a female prison, because he insisted on  now identifying as a woman.

i agree it is insane

but as far as i understand the story in the OP, this lindsay is a trans woman, ie a bloke who wants to be a woman, but according to biology and the law of the land he is a man

a whole bunch of blokes get raped in prison, it's not a very nice place to be.  was this inmate raped because he identified as a woman or despite it.

i may of course have completely misunderstood what's being said and actually have this story completely arse upwards, damned if i know

Raggamuffin wrote:Is he/she a man or a woman?

Eilzel wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Is he/she a man or a woman?

Identifies as a woman. Seems to have been doing so for quite some time. There was a clear risk in putting her with men, a risk I'm sure the people who put her in there were aware of.

Raggamuffin wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

Identifies as a woman. Seems to have been doing so for quite some time. There was a clear risk in putting her with men, a risk I'm sure the people who put her in there were aware of.

Thanks Les. I wasn't sure if she was biologically a woman who wanted to be a man, or the other way round. The men who raped her were actually raping a man then. I guess that happens anyway?

HoratioTarr wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

Identifies as a woman. Seems to have been doing so for quite some time. There was a clear risk in putting her with men, a risk I'm sure the people who put her in there were aware of.

Thanks Les. I wasn't sure if she was biologically a woman who wanted to be a man, or the other way round. The men who raped her were actually raping a man then. I guess that happens anyway?

More likely to happen if you look like a girl though, I'd say.

This brings  up the subject of would a woman who identifies as a man, and wants to be treated as a man, be put in a male prison?