Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast
about things falling apart and how to put them back together.
I'm your guest host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is an
episode about both of those things. Not Margaret and Killjoy,
but about things falling apart and putting them back together.
If you live in the US, you might have noticed
(00:25):
that things are falling apart in the onslaught of new
federal changes over the past few weeks. There is one
that is both astoundingly important and also likely to disappear
below people's radars because it affects prisoners. Trans prisoners. Prison
is the place that society puts people to forget that
they exist. It shouldn't be that way, while prisons ought
(00:48):
not to be how we solve problems as a society
at all, but it is the way that things currently are.
Things that affect prisoners are routinely ignored, even though we
live in a society built on the idea of incarceration.
It's been in the news that US trans people somehow
just sort of don't exist anymore, that everyone is either
(01:10):
male or female, dictated at birth and immutable. Obviously, this
flies in the face of biological and social reality, and
it's going to impact us trans people quite a bit.
One group of people that it's going to impact very immediately,
very dramatically, and very dangerously is trans prisoners. According to
(01:33):
Bureau of Prison Statistics, there are currently one thousand, five
hundred and twenty nine trans women and seven hundred and
forty four trans men held in federal prisons, and not
all of them are being held in gender appropriate prisons already.
As we're going to talk about with our guests in
a bit, prisoners have to go through an incredible amount
(01:54):
of dehumanization in order to have a chance of being
placed in the right facility. But now that isn't an option,
and women are being moved into men's prisons. Does the
idea of being a woman in a men's prison scare you?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
It should.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
It's terrifying. It's worse than what you might imagine. One
trans woman prisoner who's using a pseudonym for her lawsuit
going by Maria Moe, has already filed a lawsuit in
federal court to stop this new regulation. She is challenging
it on both procedural and constitutional grounds. The government didn't
(02:32):
go about this in the legal manner, and to house
trans women with men goes against the Eighth Amendment, which
prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, as well as the Fifth
Amendments do process clause. I simply can't imagine putting a
woman into men's prison as anything other than cruel and
unusual punishment. The state can pretend that trans women aren't women,
(02:55):
but the men in prison will not treat her like
how they treat assists men. On January twenty first, the
woman suing the prison system was told that she was
going to be moved to men's prison after all of
her records were suddenly changed to mark her male. Federal
data says that trans prisoners are sexually assaulted at ten
times the rate of other prisoners, and that's the state's
(03:17):
own reporting on the issue. But you know who doesn't
know how to effortlessly transition to ads after saying something
as serious as that, it's me, I don't know how
to effortlessly transitions ads. After giving you a statistic like that,
When we come back, we're going to talk about how
serious the situation is, but also provide just an absolute
(03:38):
incredible number of things that you can do at various
levels of risk to support the people whose lives are about.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
To be ruined by this policy change.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay, and we're back. So to talk about how trans
people fair in prison, I have brought on my friend
with the most experience in prison, the former political prisoner
Eric King. Eric served just shy of ten years in
prison for throwing a molotov into an empty federal building
one night in response to the Ferguson uprising of twenty fourteen.
(04:17):
Those were a protests that were anti police protests that
started in the wake of the police killing of eighteen
year old black man Michael Brown. Eric is also the
co editor of a book called Rattling the Cages, Oral
Histories of North American Political Prisoners, which has a forward
by none other than Angela Davis and is worth checking out.
Eric was released from the eighty X Supermax in December
(04:39):
twenty twenty three. He walked out of prison wearing a
support trans kid shirt and has been vocal about his
support for us as soon as he walked out the door. So, Eric,
thanks for coming on. It could happen here.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
How are you. I'm doing really well, glad to be back.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Yeah, so you reached out to me about this. What
would you call it, like a policy change?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, executive order?
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I guess, yeah, you know, And basically we talked about
like how do we try and make sure that people
know about what's happening. And I wanted to ask you, So,
you're a SIS man and you didn't have an easy
time in prison, right as far as I as far
as I understand now, I think no one gets to
have an easy time in prison is one of the things,
(05:25):
especially in a supermax, So.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Not that easier than others.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I guess, yeah, you were not among the people who
had it easier. And as I would follow your journey
through the federal prison system, it seems like you had
to defend yourself against both other prisoners and also prison staff.
Is that a fair way to put it mildly?
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, yes, that was what was going on.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Can you tell me a bit about the experience of
trans people in prison, because when you look at this
executive order, it sort of implies like all trans women
are in women's prison and all trans men. Actually, I
literally have no idea or transmit are held. I would
rather if I was a transmit, I'd probably rather be
in women's prison. I just Anyway, I don't know what
was the situation like before this executive order.
Speaker 5 (06:08):
So I want to start with saying, like, the reason
I hit you up is because there's so much like
horror happening this first week of like Trump's new presidency,
and I didn't want this issue to get swept under
the rug. Yeah, a lot of times, the bigger, more
mainstream issues will get the most attention. And I still
remember our trans family inside, and so that's what scared
(06:32):
me enough to be like, dude, I need to talk
to you about this.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah. So when I was.
Speaker 5 (06:37):
Inside, there was not very many trans people, and they're like,
correct prison, Like a trans woman should be in a
women's prison, Yeah, a trans man should be in a
man's prison.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
And that wasn't happening on the level that it should have.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
And there was a rare case like Marius Mason who
had enough support, enough publicity where they were able to
Most people were stuck at their gender at birth. And
so over the last couple of years, people started getting
a lot more access to safe prisons. That's why I'll
call them my prisons where they feel safest. So I
(07:15):
trans women were starting to go to women's prisons, and
it wasn't very many.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It's not like there's tens of thousands, but handfuls.
Speaker 5 (07:24):
Because it is it's very hard in the federal system
to get recognized as a transgender person. You have to
go through years of degrading and humiliating therapy with the
prison psychologist. You have to get just horribly treated by
doctors who ignore you, gasight, you diminish, you try to
(07:44):
push Christianity on you, and then if you make it
through their brutality, then you were one of the lucky ones.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You got to say, like, I am this person, this
is who I am.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
And if you're even more lucky, you got to be
transferred to a prison that would make you feel the safest,
the most whole is a human and that's the goal, Like,
that's the safety goal. Basically, that's where we wanted things
to be pushed. That people would be recognized for who
they are, they would get treated for for who they were,
(08:15):
and they would be sent to a prison that was
congruent with who they were. And that's what's all being
taken away.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah, and when you talk about the safety, I don't
want to like necessarily go on at great length about
how trans women suffer invents prisons, but it's probably worth
talking about, like because you've described it as there's like
literal sexual slavery happening in the prisons. Is that a
fair way to put it?
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Yeah, one hundred and ten percent yes, yes, And I
only speak for federal prisons. I know in some states
it's different. Like in some states people are able to
use like their femininity as like a power play as
a tool to keep themselves safe. And so if that,
if that's an option, then great. But what eye witness
in the federal prison was the exact opposite of that.
(09:02):
People are getting destroyed. And if you go into a
men's prison presenting as female in any way or soft anywhere,
or as any type of one or any type of
nonsense straight male, you are an automatic target. And it's
not like hyperbole to say that if you walked onto
a penitentiary yard and you had makeup, if you had
(09:25):
your hair long, if you had breast, if you had
anything presenting as female, you will get butchered within an hour.
You won't survive that, or you'll get by some group and.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
You will be a site like you will be property.
Speaker 5 (09:42):
And at the lower custody levels it's a lot safer
if you're at a low security like FCI Englewood.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
You're not in danger there.
Speaker 5 (09:49):
You're a danger of humiliation and being degraded by staff,
but you're not going to get stabbed there. But God
forbid you go to Victorville Medium, Florence Medium, or any
PENITENTI tree, like, that's a death sentence for real.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, do you want to talk about the worst things
I've ever happened to you? Do you want to talk
about you and I? We did another episode on my
other podcast, Live like the World is Dying and talking
about how to survive prison, and in it you talked
a little bit about what was necessary to kind of
stand up for trans prisoners. Do you want to talk
(10:25):
about that a little bit?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Yeah, So, like everyone needs to have like consequence awareness
and they need to work on the lines that make
them feel most comfortable. Of course, but for me, I
was not comfortable at all watching trans or gay prisoners
get brutalized. And so there were times where we have
to raise money to buy a prisoner.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Out of sex slavery.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Yeah, we just have to buy them and then basically
free them or pay off whatever debt they owed.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
So that they no longer have to be in that situation.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
And there was other times that you you have to
knife up or you have to show up physically. And
I'm not a big guy, of course, but like I
don't tolerate like anti trams bullshit in my life anywhere,
and that includes in prison, and so like there are
times you have to step to people and say, like
I am not gonna let this person have this happen
(11:17):
to them, and if you want to continue doing this,
then like we're going to take it to the next level.
And I wish to god there was more prison allies
that would be willing to do that inside, because once
someone is shown to have like support, it makes them
less easy to be a victim. If people see that
like this person's trams or like other people are riding
with them, they're less likely to go after them because
(11:39):
they'll be consequences. But if they're all alone, then they're
just a sitting duck. And so like we need that,
we need CIS men to show up and be like
this is not happening. I don't care what race you are,
I don't care what gang you in you're in, You're
not going to hurt this person, and that's stuff that
we had to do. Sometimes it's scariest shit because you
don't know what's gonna up.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
But you have to, like, you have to live your ethics.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
One of the reasons that I wanted to talk to
you about it and have you on this show is because, unfortunately,
I mean, prison is kind of a concentration of the
worst parts of society. I do not want to say
the worst people in society. I believe it has much
more to do with the incarceration and the way that
people are forced to be right when they're incarcerated. There's
a tangent. But have you heard the whole thing where
there's no such thing as an alpha male wolf in
(12:25):
the wild.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
I've only heard from you, and I loved it.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Okay, I probably said this exact same thing last time
we time in captivity. Yeah, And so it's like it
obviously is going to bring out the worst in people.
That One of the reasons I want to have you
want to talk about this is because I think that
the experiences that you're talking about, they're much more real
and intense than most people on the outside are like
really thinking, you know, they're like, oh, that sounds bad.
(12:50):
But then their brain kind of turns off and they
stop imagining what bad looks like. And I think that
this idea that we're going to have to stand up
for fa regardless of the risk and cost to ourselves
sometimes is what it takes to create a society that
is resistant to fascism. I think it's the same energy
that people are going to have to do with, like no,
(13:12):
you can't take my neighbors right in the era of ice.
Speaker 5 (13:16):
I think that's really well said too. I think the
way I used to wear inside is like we can't
take steps backwards. We can't relinquish any progress we've made,
not a single pinch of it. Like everything has to
move forward, and whatever you're capable of doing, Like not
everyone's capable of like physically stepping to someone and saying
like no, right, But everyone's capable of something, whether that's
(13:38):
doing calling campaigns, organizing protests outside of prison, whether it's
contacting region, contacting this person, raising money, doing whatever it takes.
Everyone can do something to keep people safe. And it's
the same in the free world, Like it's not different.
Everyone has something to offer. But it can't be apathy,
it can't be this nihilism that like what does it matter,
Like they're going to do it anyway? Do that like
(14:00):
we're just forfeiting the future and we're letting our family
get butchered.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Yeah. I really like that way of phrasing it. Yeah,
we can't forfeit the future. How can people support transprisoners
with what's going on right now? I don't know how
in touch you are with people on the inside and
things like that. How are people feeling, like what's the vibe?
Speaker 3 (14:22):
What can be done?
Speaker 5 (14:24):
So I assume, like when you're asking what can people
do to support transprisoners, I assume you're asking what can
free world people do to support those inside?
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:31):
I mean you actually kind of have said what people
on the inside can do, all right, which is necessary
and important, but people on the outside, what can people do?
Speaker 5 (14:39):
Visibility is safety, Like I saw that in my bid,
and I've seen that in other people's bids. And if
you look at someone like Marius Mason, if you look
at people like Jennifer Rose keeping people visible and letting
the prison know that like we're not turning a blind
eye to this person, like you're not going to get
a free one on them.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That cups people alive, Okay.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
And so the more the staff and the administration knows that,
like this person is looked after, the more they are
likely to look after them because they don't want to
be held accountable. Okay, So things like getting books into people,
things like getting pin pals of people, raising money so
that they don't have to go into debt, Like that's real,
Like this debt stuff is serious. So making sure they
(15:19):
have money on their books, Like I don't care what
they spend it on.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I don't care if they spend it on drugs. I
don't care if they spend it on twenty bags of coffee.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
Are gambling as long as it keeps them out of
slavery or out of that knife, like that's what matters.
And then Patsy names around like it's almost as if
we concentrate like all of our prisons supporting like five
or six people and then we forget that there's like
fifteen thousand trans people in prison.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
Organizations like Black and Pink do a really amazing job,
but like there's there's not enough. Like we need visibility,
like we need to keep people present in our lives
that we don't know and we might not like their charges.
They might not be nice people, like, they might not
be cool, but we need to get keep them alive.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
Like that's what abolition is. So visibility.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah, that makes sense. I sort of know the answer
to this, but I'm gonna pretend like I don't know
it at all. What's Black and Pink. Black and Pink
is an organization. I know it used to be an
anarchist organization.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
It might be something else now, but it's an organization
that's focused strictly on supporting trans and queer prisoners.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
That's all they do.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Social prisoners, political prisoners, it doesn't matter. We're gonna find
you a pin pal and we're gonna get people to
write you. And they do a really amazing job. Like
I honor them for putting in that work because it's hard.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
And so someone who's listening, who's never considered being pen
pals of the prisoner could get in touch with Black
and Pink and be hooked up with someone to write to.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, if you like.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Even just like right now, someone googled Black and Pink
pin pal m, black and Pink prison pinpal, Like it'll
pop up the website. You just click on flying a
pin pal and you can find someone in your city,
find someone in your state, find someone back to relate to,
like to have a little biography, and you can find
someone like to connect with and potentially save their life
or save your life.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Yeah, it can make you better too.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, okay, so writing helps when you talk about putting
money on people's books, like who does that? Is that
something you also could go through Black and Pink. Should
people be doing their own fundraisers and then like working
with prisoners that they've already made connections with, Like how
should people either plug in or start things?
Speaker 5 (17:20):
So each prison is different, like state and federal, but
to put money on someone's books, she can do that yourself.
You go you find out wherever prison that person's at,
and you can just go to the BOP website or
that prison's website. BOP is Bureau Prisons. It's for federal
people and it will just walk you through how to
do it, how to send the money ground from Walmart,
or how to do the JPay and put it on
(17:40):
through your credit card, and you can do it, like
if there's an ABC in America's Black Cross.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Community near you, you can fundraise with them.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
If there's any like books through bars or ablitions groups
near you, like you can and should fundraise with them
to raise awareness, but you don't have to. But everyone
can do this on your own, Like this is a
a single person job, but it's better if we do
it as a community.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Well, the way that I fund raised is that I
have advertisers that interrupt me talking about anti capitalist things.
And here's one of those interruptions. And I'm gonna go
ahead and donate my pay for this episode to exactly
what we're talking about. And here's ads they are not donating.
You can think of whatever you want about these ads,
(18:34):
and we're back, okay with this new executive order. Like,
how are people feeling either inside or people who are
doing prison abolition work, or like how crisis does this feel?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Like? What's going on?
Speaker 5 (18:46):
I can't like speak for it should keel like a
ten out of ten? Yeah, like this is a carceral genocide. Yeah, real,
this isn't a rature of an entire people. So like,
if you're not at a ten for this, like you
either do not care or you're not understanding how serious
the prison system is. I've talked to a couple homies inside.
I have to be really delicate because I'm still on probation.
But those people understand that, like the mood is turning dark. Okay,
(19:11):
they see inside that like when fascists come into power,
it empowers everyone else below them to be brutal because
they can get away with it now. And so these
people that were already monsters under the most liberal of
prison director are now getting told by the president that
they do not have to respect this person's entire life.
And so it's a very serious situation. We've got a
(19:33):
non binary person about to go in name Casey Goonan,
and they got sentenced for allegedly firebombing some cop cars
and support with Palestine, and I talk with them on
a weekly basis, just trying to prepare them because like
right now, where they're at is a jail and they
haven't really experienced the prison yet, and so it's all
about like getting them ready for like here are potentials,
(19:56):
like here's what they could do, but it's dark in there,
like the Nazis are are celebrating, and that includes the
ones with badges especially.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Yeah, that makes sense. What kind of support felt the
most useful to you in other prisoners? He talked about
this a little bit, But I'm I'm like curious about
like you talked about, like visibility, are protests outside of jails?
Do they do they make people feel like good and
welcome or does it make the guards cracked down on everyone?
Like I know that there's this you know, habit of
noise demonstrations every New Years, and what kind of stuff
(20:26):
felt good, and what kind of stuff felt good but scary,
and what kind of stuff was just annoying? Like I
don't know, I'm just trying to find more stuff that
people can do.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, the noise demos are cool, but they're performative. Mm hmm.
It's more for the people that are doing them than
the people inside. M hm.
Speaker 5 (20:41):
But like, let's say you're a trans person out of
jail and there's thirty five people outside waving your banner.
That will get your respect inside, get people to say,
oh right, what the hell is going on with them?
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Okay?
Speaker 5 (20:52):
Yeah, like that is that's serious to where you can
build up a rep if someone's already in prison, that's
you'll probably get them fucked up and put in the shoe.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
That's what happened to me.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
If there's a noise demonstration with your name, yeah, yeah,
be delicate.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
How you do it? Yeah, because that's what put me
in ad X.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh shit, so that's a real that's a real double
edged sword, right.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:11):
They use that as the as the thing saying I
was the leader of Antifa because I got people to
come out and protest for me.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
So I got Pulley Bell, Chapo.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
We shouldn't tell everyone that you we have to keep
it on the DL that you're the leader of Antifa.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
For real. We dropped the ball. I know.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Wait, I've been told I'm the leader of Antifa.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
You're my leader?
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Oh okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
I'm more regional leader.
Speaker 5 (21:37):
The things that help the most, like in a real
life situation, are the things that provide mental safety and
something to do. Okay, so books, magazines that gives you
something to do, like empower yourself and pass the time
and stay out of the way. Money helps because then
you can do crafts, you can paint, you can do art,
you can sell things, you can do crochet. That stuff helps.
(21:58):
And then letters on this like that gives you someone
to talk to it. People are actually putting thought into
the letters. And I always encourage and I always will
for as many people as possible to on a daily
or weekly basis, call that prison, call the prison, no
matter what prison, state, federal, county, and demand to speak
with the warden, the captain, the warden's secretary, the lieutenant,
(22:21):
the head of psychology, and demand to know how is
this person doing? What are you doing to keep them safe?
We're hearing this in this what is going to happen
to our family? That makes a difference. Okay, if you
know a lawyer, pay the one hundred and twenty dollars
an hour to have them do a legal call. That way,
the prison sees this person as a lawyer protecting them.
They don't need to know that it's just a one
(22:42):
time call. Yeah, but that legal call, just the wellness
check is what they call it. Let's that person get
word out about what dangerous stuff is happening. But it
also forces the prison to recognize that they might be
protected by legal system.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Okay, so these things help.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, what's the master plan here for how we're going
to respond to this executive order? Because obviously we're not
necessarily in a position to immediately reverse this order and
get women put into women's prison, which is a crazy
thing to have to say. We're not gonna be able
to get women put into women's prisons. But is organizing
with a local group. You create a group and you
(23:19):
basically like figure out who the local trans prisoners are
in your area and make sure that you're communicating with
them and that they're getting wellness calls from lawyers and
basically like just making sure that the prison knows that
people are paying attention to the fact that there's now
women in the men's prison.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Is that that's a soft version of what we should do, Yeah,
fair enough.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
There's other versions that are yeah, okay.
Speaker 5 (23:41):
There's the other version that I wish people would do. Yeah,
there's a version where we do BDS but for every
single company that's benefiting from prison labor. Yeah, and say,
as long as you let this transgender hate go on,
we're not going to support your business. There's boycotting. There's
putting people on the road so that the cops can't
show up to their jobs.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Uh huh.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
There's protesting outside wardens houses. There's protesting outside governor's houses
if it's for a state prison. There is tangibly putting
your body on the line. There is sabotaging cop cars
that go into the prison, there is barricading the entrances.
There's a thousand things we can do to say, if
you heard our people were hurting you, whether it's in
your pocket, whether it's in your car, whether it's in
(24:18):
your daily life, whether it's annoying you. We can find
things to do if we care enough. And we saw
people do it for Palestine. And I don't think transgender
lives are less important than Palestinian lives. Yeah, it has
to be an equal thing in my mind. Yeah, but
the subu side's really great too. That's like that's daily stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, No, but you're right, and it's like it's funny
because it's like, in my mind, it's so hard to
ring the alarm bells when all of the alarm bells
are ringing, and everyone's kind of ignoring alarm bells right now.
I mean, I guess the answer is that we talk
about it like this, but like, how do we make
sure that people actually listen to the alarm bells that
are happening right now? And I think part of it
is being really unfortunately brutally honest about what it's like
(24:57):
to be a woman in men's prison.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
I mean, I don't think people understand it all. And
there's all this misinformation too, Like you'll hear these like
fascist talking points coming out of liberals' mouths to where
like well, I don't want my tax dollars going to
like pay for their surgery, or I don't want some
man just sneaking into a woman's prison saying these transgenders
we can rape everyone. And these are like the same
scare tactics and like misinformation that's used for every single,
(25:21):
like every single repression you've ever seen. And it's our
job to confront those head on and call them out.
His Lives show show the real information, and it's our
job to continue to just force people to recognize that
this is a dangerous and real situation. We can't let
this entire group of people be destroyed, because like, if
(25:44):
you're going to turn your blind eye to transgender people,
you're going to do it to gain people, You're going
to do it to women, You're going to do it
to black people, and then it's just you, and then
no one's going to protect your stupid ass. We have to,
as or as I have to as assist man, we
have to keep bringing this bell.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
We have to make people listen.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
I mean as a as a not currently in prison
trans woman, Like like one of the reasons I think
this almost happens. I mean it happens because the cruelty
is the point, but like it's terrifying. You've actually experienced
the thing that's terrifying. It is terrifying the idea of
going into prison in the United States, especially maximum security prison,
potentially especially men's prison, both as a man or a
(26:24):
trans woman. I wouldn't want to be in men's prison.
Speaker 5 (26:26):
And I don't even want to compare it, by the way, Okay,
it's not comparable. Okay, Like if I didn't have antique
attachment on my face, I could walk into any prison
in a country and be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
There's just a white guy, there's just a white roll. Yeah,
I have no problem.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Yeah, a transgender person, there's a single place except for
a protective custody yard, where they can walk in and
immediately feel safe.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
Yeah, it's the exact opposite. Everywhere they go is fight
or flight.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
The scariest moment you've ever had your entire life, point
four to seven, all day, every day. Yeah, picture someone
breaking into your home in the middle of the night.
In that terror you get. They have to walk into
a new prison every single time and face that terror
every single day.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Yeah, it's not comparable at all. It's scary as shit.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
No, that's fair. Like to be honest, like I think
about and this is like maybe more honest than I'm
usually I am on this podcast. Like, you know, I
don't do as much frontline activism as I did. And
part of that's like, oh, I'm like aging and I
have other work that I do, And part of it
is like I came out as trans, you know, part
of it is like I never liked the idea of
like because I always was trans and the idea of
like being surrounded by only men was just viscerally terrifying.
(27:29):
But now in particular, like it's just such a it's
a mind fuck. It's terrifying, And you know, I feel
like one of my main roles is to try and
help people be like, look, we're in this together enough
that you should be scared, but you should get through
the fear. But it's like, the fear of prison is
like such a I mean, it's part of the reason
that people say, like, no one is free till everyone
is free, as long as there is a single person
(27:51):
in prison, you were not free because your freedom can
be taken away from you at any point, and that
fear of prison it's funny, Okay, I'm almost doing. You know,
people have kind of like figured out at this point
that like certain branches of Christianity will use the fear
of hell to force people to be good by their
definition of good right. And it's a scare tactic. It's terrorism.
(28:14):
It is like a you know, you better behave or
infinite suffering awaits you. But then even the people who
are critical of that haven't necessarily wrapped their head around that.
The existence of prisons, especially the existence of punitive prisons,
like the sort of theoretical perfect model of the Norwegian
prisoner or whatever, where you're just sort of separated from society,
which I suspect is not actually I suspect Norwegian prison
(28:36):
actually kind of sucks. But the American prison system is
a prison system that exists to make you on the
outside not feel free, like because it can be taken
away from you and you can be thrown in prison.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
That's my rant.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Yeah, well, I mean you're absolutely right, like that is
the entire goal is to make sure that the community
walks the government line, because if you don't, this is
what will happen to you. And when people pull like
the nonsense stuff like well, if you're not committing crimes,
you shouldn't worry about it, Like they are not looking
at how like arbitrary crimes are. They're not looking at
(29:10):
how quickly something can become a crime, or how quickly
something that wasn't a crime can be portrayed as one.
And the trans struggle, like trans people should not have
to be on the front line, Like at no point
should you or any of our trans family ever have
to like put their freedom on the line, Like that
is that's a privileged role, Like that's our role, my role,
(29:31):
and my boss shouldn't have to get arrested for transliberation.
Like they should be safe, Like they should be able
to feel comfort and warmth. You should be able to
feel that safe and warmth and love. Like black people
shouldn't be flighting the black liberation pipe. That's that's white
people's flight. Trans people should not have to put their
vulnerable lives on the line for this struggle if we
really believe in in the liberation struggle.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, and it's hard because you also want to like
while also not wanting to like lead that struggle, right,
Like I think that like white people putting them ourselves
on the line for black liberation is like super important.
But then obviously you can get into.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
There's the hero shit and trying to take a leadership. Yeah,
do the David Gilbert role.
Speaker 5 (30:09):
Be a soldier how they need you, and help and
fight how people actually need you, not how you think
it should be done.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Yeah, totally. Well, any last words for our audience around
this particular issue.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
Yeah, here in Denver, Brenn Rose's Legal Center, that's who
I work for. It's a transgender ran civil rights law firm.
We're about to put forward the trans Bill rights here
in Colorado to guarantee safety. And I bring that up
to say that not only is there direct action and
protest we can do, we can also try to weasel
into the legal system.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah. There's a thousand ways we can fight these motherfuckers,
and we got to use every single one of them. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (30:48):
And I have nothing but love and solidarity for every
transgender person alive anywhere, And I'm with you, and we're
going to get through this.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
I hope we are going to get through it. Because
even as inndivid well we might not, right, But that's
that's true about being alive, right, Literally, none of us
are going to get through being alive alive, right at
some point that's going to stop working for us, and
they can't get rid of us. We have always been here,
we will always be here as long as there are
(31:16):
humans that are going to be trans people, they are
going to be queer people, they're going to be All
of the identities that they're trying to destroy cannot be destroyed,
even if us as individuals might. But again, we weren't
going to get out of life alive anyway. That's what
I hold on to. I don't know about everyone who's listening,
but the thing that I hold onto is just literally
I was like, well I wasn't.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I'm not immortal, you know, it's got a time limit. Yeah,
And all we.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Can do is to say, go back to one of
the first things that you said, we just kind of
can't compromise our ethics, you know, like there's like balancing
acts right where you have to think like, well, I
probably shouldn't do something where I like while out and
get myself killed and accomplished nothing like to win, yeah, exactly,
And some of fighting to win is knowing and not
to fight and things like that, right, but not in
(32:03):
a secretly you're just actually doing it at a cowardice way.
You actually have to be strategically being like where and
when should I engage in what ways? And there are
so many different ways that people can engage. Yeah, thanks
for coming on, And do you want to talk about
your book?
Speaker 5 (32:17):
So rather than the cages out right now, it's with
ak Press and it is a oral history of the
political prisoner movement hold from the mouths of those prisoners.
It covers like fifty or so prisoners from every movement,
Black trans Our Elders are more recent anti fascists, and
it is a beautiful way not just to hear about
(32:38):
like oh I fought for this, but what was my
life like inside? What did I experience? What gave me joy,
what gave me hope, what gave me sadness? And it's
a way to see the vulnerability and humanity of those inside.
And I think that's really valuable right now. And here
soon my ad X book is coming out on the Impress.
Oh cool, So I'll be.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Hounding you for that here soon for that coverage.
Speaker 5 (32:59):
Yeah yeah, wait, well what's that book called or about
it's gonna be called a clean Hell, and it's gonna
be about how I want it trial because no one
does that in the Feds. Yeah, zero point zero eight
percent of people win in federal trial. And then how
I got sent to the federal supermax and there's no
books out about the supermax there's none. Well, and so
one of your homies as the inside scoop.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Yeah I got Yeah, you were just an undercover journalist,
just a real undercover solitary confinement.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
So had Josh Davidson is helping me edit it.
Speaker 5 (33:32):
Josh Davidson from rather than the Cages who who did
also certain days.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
So it seemed to be a really great project. Calso awesome.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
All right, Well, people should check out both of those
things and take care of people inside. And I hope
that we'll have you on again soon.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Yay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
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