"She" is a very innocuous word out in the world, as we call life beyond the fence. In a men's prison, things are different and that word can mean a number of things that at times can get confusing. Forgive my slang, it's how we talk in here, but you have the Queens who refer to each other as she but are cool with everyone else referring to them with the masculine pronoun. Then you have the homophobes who can't deal with that concept, but this being an easy-going (relatively speaking) low security prison, they have learned to co-exist. Some guys, however, insist on everyone calling them by feminine names and pronouns, and that pushes the envelope a little, so you'll hear some harsh words. For example, Hater Dude pushes through a crowd, grumbling, "Move over, Joe." Joe, who insists on being called Jane, ignores him and the next thing you know the names being used are things like b__ch and d__khead. Usually it's just posturing. We all live on a tightrope, trying not to fall off.
About a month ago something happened that made the tightrope bounce. This will forever be known as T-Day or Tranny Arrival Day. The BOP announced its official policy on transgender inmates, granting them protection as a minority. As a result, we now have four card-carrying transgender prisoners. I do mean -- literally -- card-carrying. They were issued a special identification card that allows them to receive hormone therapy to help them assume a feminine shape, wear bras and panties as underwear, and style their hair long. But think about this for a moment. In a men's prison, we now have four inmates who not only identify as women but who clearly look the part and have the BOP's official permission to do so.
I'm sure you can imagine how this has blown up our world. Guys are fawning all over the ladies. Alpha Male chest-puffery has gone off the chain. Other guys storm up and down the block raging over this "abomination" as an offense to God that should be punished. Most, myself included, take a live-and-let-live approach. Except for the both scary and welcome disruption to our dreary routine, we could care less. The problem, as with most things in life, is that those with the loudest voices get the most attention. So at any time of the day or night, the Haters and the guys now being called Tranny Lovers can fall into some very loud arguments.
Then as you'd expect, the number of late night bathroom trysts has increased, primarily attributed to one of the transgender inmates behaving, well, like a kid in a candy shop. The prison authorities have tried to discourage this behavior -- we all need our sleep, they say -- but what I want to ask them is one simple question: "What did you think would happen?" You drop people who look more or less like women, who identify as women and act like women, in an all-male population? You publish a policy that backs their female identity, and then you act all surprised when some guys actually treat them as women? The guards have actually begun to punish guys who become romantically interested in the transgender group. But the authorities started this, dropping the fox in the hen house. No, I guess it's the hen in the fox house, but you get my drift.
I don't have an answer. Seems to me that a person who is going through gender re-assignment medications and all that in order to have the woman's body to go with her woman's identity should be in a woman's prison. Or maybe in a special prison called, maybe, Alcatrans? Okay, bad joke. I was distracted for a moment by the stream of guys heading down the hall to talk up our newest inmate, Miss Tasha. Just a friendly hello, offering to help in any way possible. Something tells me this will not end well. I'll keep you posted.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Shower Curtains
In preparation for an inspection by ACA (an independent,
non-BOP organization) -- that had been expected for over a year -- our fearless
jailers suddenly leaped into action.
Spray fresh paint over mold, check.
Problem guests shipped elsewhere, check.
The proverbial lipstick on a pig approach. But no single effort garnered as much
attention as the surprising addition of shower curtains. We all thought, whoah, a truly private
shower! What a concept!
As I believe I’ve mentioned before, we’re fortunate that we
don’t have to shower in a big open room, like you see on tv prisons. We do have these rectangular stalls, sort of
like the toilet stalls in public restrooms, but with a shower nozzle on the
wall. Dividers go from floor to about 6
feet high. But they’re open, no door, so
a curtain would be awesome!
The inspectors, we’ learned, insist on curtains
because we have three official card-carrying transgender inmates (yes, the BOP
issues an ID card for that). Legally,
they must be afforded a private shower experience, so the simplest solution (so
you’d think) is to put up shower curtains on every stall. Big deal, right? How could anybody screw that up? Well, let me count the ways:
1.
They never ordered the curtains, so they had to…
2.
Make them here, but…
3.
They didn’t want to spend the money to do it
right, so…
4.
They cut pieces of vinyl and stapled (yes,
stapled!) Velcro tabs to the sides and…
5.
Screwed the Velcro pieces to the wall of the
shower, but…
6.
The Velcro was immediately swiped by inmates and…
7.
The curtains are hard to keep clean, because…
8.
We aren’t allowed to spray them down, and…
9.
THE KICKER FOR THOSE OF US NOT OVER 6 FOOT 6
INCHES TALL, the curtains are located halfway down the length of the stall, so
you have this little 3 foot by 3 foot space to shower in and the nozzle is not
adjustable, so if you’re my size or thereabouts when you turn on the water you
get blasted with an industrial strength fire hose of water directly in the
face. Move back and you run into the
curtain (yuck!), move forward and you hit the wall. It’s like getting water-boarded or
pressure-washed in the skull!
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