However, since the start of the de Blasio administration policy, these panels have frequently overruled the L.G.B.T.Q. Affairs unit’s recommendations. The panel often assumes that trans women are a threat to cisgender women, either explicitly or implicitly denying that trans women are women. Such assumptions are divorced from the conditions that truly maintain jail safety: attentive and trained corrections officers, state-of-the-art facilities with limited blind spots, and a respect for basic human dignity. These panels typically cite federal prison safety laws when denying gender-expansive detainees an assignment that matches their gender identity.
Initial gender-aligned placements are half the battle. For trans women, remaining in Rosie’s is predicated on good behavior, a requirement for safe housing not placed on cisgender women. The Department of Correction does not provide public statistics on the distribution of gender-expansive people in its custody, but in my experience, roughly half of these detainees are living in misaligned housing at any time.
After the high-profile death of a trans detainee at Rikers in 2019, the City Council created a task force to improve conditions for incarcerated trans and nonbinary people. Using the task force’s recommendations as a guide, my colleagues and I drafted policies that ensured the L.G.B.T.Q. Affairs unit’s voices were prioritized in trans housing decisions.
Our pressure brought slow but steady movement in the department’s willingness to default to gender-aligned housing placements. I’m not claiming to have solved all issues, but I’m proud of the work we did.
In Mr. Molina’s tenure, two of the three members of the L.G.B.T.Q. Affairs unit have quit, citing a pattern of senior leadership and sexual safety staff members being inattentive to or outright dismissive of the needs of gender-expansive detainees. In his January testimony, Mr. Molina attempted to characterize these departures as normal turnover. But the concerns raised by these employees should not be ignored.
By all indications, the system we built before my 2022 departure has crumbled, yet that does not mean it cannot be rebuilt. There are steps that Mr. Molina, the department, legislators and the Board of Correction should adopt now to improve conditions for gender-expansive detainees.
The department can begin by assigning a senior staff member with the power to respond to housing assignment concerns quickly. When I worked there, I made myself the emergency point of contact for gender-expansive detainees, spending nights and weekends on the phone with attorneys and wardens to ensure safe housing.