The violence inflicted upon transgender people in jails and prisons is not new. It is an enduring crisis that has persisted throughout history, largely ignored or dismissed by those in power. It was a transgender woman, Dee Farmer, whose landmark case, Farmer v. Brennan, established that prisons are responsible for the safety of people incarcerated within them after she was raped in a men’s prison.

Transgender people have long been disproportionately subjected to abuse, harassment, and degradation within these institutions, and their suffering is met with systemic neglect. In 2024, the Vera Institute of Justice and Black and Pink National surveyed nearly 300 incarcerated transgender people and published a report on their findings. The findings are nothing short of appalling. According to the report, “more than half (53 percent) of respondents reported experiencing a nonconsensual sexual encounter during their current sentence,” and “nearly 90 percent of respondents had spent time in solitary confinement.” Among those who sought medication for gender transition while incarcerated, “53 percent were unable to access it.”