Prison begins with a strip search.
They get me to change
and search for any drugs and whatnot.
Two male officers inspect my bottom half,
but two female officers inspect my top half.
This story is about how I found myself
as a woman in a male's prison.
At first, I get a cell to myself
and I'm terrified.
I just want to get through the night.
A week later, I was
looking forward to a phone call with my partner
and when I got on the phone,
I couldn't hear.
This dude was walking up and down the hall
saying some real out of space shit.
I yelled at him.
So they put us in our cells to cool off.
Later on, the same guy was looking at me
and mumbling under his breath.
“What did you call me?” I asked.
“I called you a faggot.”
So I punched him.
Two guards handcuffed me
and they took me to Unit One,
the punishment unit.
Unit One means isolation
and you’re only allowed out
for an hour a day.
It felt like all the colour
had been drained from the world.
Three days later,
when they came to take me to another cell,
I was surprised to find that Unit One
was where I would be staying.
Spending 21 hours in your cell a day,
it's excruciating.
There's no space to move.
It’s like the prison couldn't come up with
a good, safe way to deal with me
and I was being punished for it.
My mind was breaking.
All these crazy conversations
in my head at night,
losing sleep.
Revisiting all the stuff that
led me to prison in the first place.
When I was sixteen years old,
I felt like I was definitely a girl.
It was scary because you’re wary
of how the world might react.
When I came out to my dad and step-mum,
I felt really lonely and isolated.
They could’ve helped me move forward,
but urged me to keep it secret.
A whole world felt like it had opened up to me,
but it was shut down.
Conflict at home resulted in me
getting punched in the face a few times,
so I felt unsafe and unwilling to be there.
After high school, I moved out.
I couch surfed and eventually became homeless
so I was really suicidal
and using drugs.
With heroin, it was like everything just floated away.
My relationship at the time was turbulent.
There were a lot of drugs.
Arguments and
physical abuse from my side got worse.
I was charged with assaulting two police officers
and then went to prison.
So I'd been inside for about five months
when I finally got to go back to court.
I just wanted out.
Mentally fried from enduring days of isolation.
I felt like I was being punished unfairly
just because I was a vulnerable prisoner.
After the hearing,
I realised I wouldn’t be going home.
I flipped out.
I was angry
because I felt like I wasn’t being listened to.
I walked out and started yelling.
This guard grabbed me from behind -
I thought he was attacking me
so I turned around to hold him at
arm's length away from me.
I was placed in the punishment regime again.
They came to me and said,
"because of your little stint
with the guards at video link,
we're sending you to mainstream".
So after five months in segregation,
all of a sudden I'm allowed to go
to mainstream prison
and share a cell with a dude?
It was terrifying.
I got to the end cell
and I looked back towards the gate.
Everyone was standing in the hallway
staring at me.
I heard someone say, “What the fuck?”
I was getting everyone's attention.
I felt constantly harassed
and there was no privacy.
I felt like I had lost control
of my identity and my body.
Being a transwoman in a male prison,
you don't get to just do prison -
you have to be experienced
constantly by other people.
There were a few people that looked out for me.
But in those few weeks,
I did have some run-ins.
One day, I was in my cell
and these two dudes came in
and pressured me to suck their dicks.
I was telling them I didn't want to.
They kept going and
I didn't know what to do.
So I finally conceded
and went to do it
and they left before I had to.
I'm glad I didn't have to do it
but I still feel like I had
all my power taken away from me.
Where was the concern for my safety?
I felt very angry
the prison would put me in that position.
A few weeks later I was granted bail
and I was going home.
I used the time to reflect
and consolidate my actions
and experiences leading up to going to prison.
I still have the same anger
and it's tough.
I managed to stay a year sober after getting out
but I'm not sober now.
There's definitely a scenario
in which I could have done prison
which didn't put me through such a
traumatic, horrible experience.
I'm not hopeful about the future.
I'm just doing things so that I have a future,
and hopefully I find hope along the way.