What Happens

[Trigger warning for rape (including descriptions in the New York Times article), abuse of prison inmates, and transphobia]

I apologize to folks at Questioning Transphobia for stealing the title from one of their posts earlier in the year, but honestly, it's the most appropriate thing I can think of.

Intersectional transphobia, for a variety of reasons, leads to trans people (especially, I suspect, younger trans women, especially especially younger trans women of color) to be incarcerated at [TW] disproportionately high rates.

Locked up in prisons, governments attempt to do whatever they can to disrespect the autonomy of trans inmates, including but not limited to housing transsexual inmates in the incorrect sex-segregated facilities.

And then this disrespect leads to sexual abuse, which very, very rarely leads to the arrest (and/or punishment) of abusers and/or mention in the pages of a major newspaper:

[TW] NYT:

A New York City correction officer was arrested and charged on Thursday with forcing a transgender inmate to engage in a sex act with him at a Manhattan jail.

...According to a complaint filed in court, the victim had filed a grievance with the Correction Department about a month before the stairwell attack took place, complaining that [the officer in question] had repeatedly harassed her.

...In her suit against the city, the woman alleged that she was also assaulted earlier in the summer of 2009 when — as an inmate at Rikers Island — she was taken to the prison ward of a hospital for treatment. In that incident, a nurse forced her to perform oral sex on him in her hospital room, the suit contends. The nurse, Carl Wiley, later pleaded guilty to committing a criminal sexual act.

Words fail to the extent of my outrage and complete and utter lack of surprise.

Fuck.