The Justice Department has reiterated rulings, strongly exhorting the heads of prison and other confinement abilities to consider other factors beyond a transgender's birth identity before consiging them to a cell. Their new sexual identity and safety should also be major considerations, given the widespread reports that transgenders face hostility and violence if placed with inmates who have the same genitalia but the opposing gender identity.
Essentially, what the court ruling says is that transgenders who identify themselves as women, although, they had been born male, should be confined to facilities where the inmates are female Placing them in cells with male heterosexual inmates can expose them to acts of violence.
According to The Guardian, these rulings are not new and have been enforced since 2012. However, their actual implementation depends on the prison and its leaders who often follow the rulings on a case-to-case basis. The Justice Department's calling the attention to these principles is a push towards a blanket-wise enforcement.
Members of civil rights organizations have said that it was about time. Chris Daley, deputy executive director of Just Detention International, says, "Advocates have long been pushing for this clarification in order to make agencies take seriously the health and well-being of transgender people in their care."
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, blogging for Hit and Run, adds the other determinants that the Justice Department says prison wardens should take a look at before deciding on the location of the transgender inmate's facilities: " ... security threat level, criminal and disciplinary history, current gender expression, medical and mental health information, vulnerability to sexual victimization, and likelihood of perpetrating abuse. The policy will likely consider facility-specific factors as well, including inmate populations, staffing patterns, and physical layouts. The policy must allow for housing by gender identity when appropriate."
USA Today cites studies that confirm that the bullying of a transgender teen in high school often leads to discrimination and outright violence upon reachingn adulthood. Transgenders have been denied employment or other benefits such as medical care because of their preferred gender identity.
Criminal acts against them have also been risen, with 23 transgender people killed in the United States alone, with another 81 recorded murders globally.
