The personal and poignant story of a transgender inmate grappling with identity, respect, and survival in the confines of prison.
I’m a transgender inmate. Not my fault. I was born with a woman’s soul. What makes me transgender is that I have a crotch deformity. Male parts where I should have had female, but I’m damn sure girl where it counts: between my ears. If you ignore my tiny male appendage, maybe in a dark room, you’d never know. Yeah, low lighting helps.
We have lots of people arguing about what rights I should have as a trans person. For me, it’s as simple as thinking in terms of compromise. I live in a men’s prison due to the aforementioned appendage as a woman. As I have chosen to transition in prison, I feel it is my place to do most of the compromising. I carry myself with the utmost respect for everyone else’s right to their opinion. If they choose to hate me, then it’s their loss. Those who get to know me find me to be a lot nicer than advertised. I also demand respect by dressing to do my best not to offend anyone.
Most of my closest friends are totally straight. Because I respect their boundaries, they got to know me as a human. I have learned that when I have to move around new people, my main problem is that many people call themselves transgender in prison, and many who are actually transgender have really bad role models. Once they realize that I’m not like them, everything gets better. Many a gay man in Texas prison got on hormones thinking boobs would make his hustling easier. Some straight ones claimed transgender to get shipped from dangerous prisons. Some did not think it through at all. No one told them that hormones don’t change bone structure or make baldness go away.
Yeah, I’m lucky enough to have pretty hair and facial features that, if not feminine, are at least cute with a little enhancement from the color pencils we use for makeup. That Boyd Unit is a designated transgender unit seems strange once you know it is also a sex offender unit. Maybe they use trans-persons as a test. There have been a few failures that staff never knew about. One cellie kept masturbating while looking at me. I had to beat the shit out of him. I have a bit of a rep that he thought couldn’t be true until he got naked a time too many.
Another was a Hispanic Christian who got drunk and came jumping out of his metaphorical closet to try to fondle me in the day room. A quick flurry of punches followed by a knee to his face for good measure, and then I announced, “Y’all can get your homeboy, or I can life-flight him. Your choice.” Nearly caused a riot. The Mexicans tried to make him slap me. He got beat up by his own for refusing, and then they were still grumbling about settling with me the next day.
That was before a good man I would later adopt and call nephew told them, “Fuck tomorrow. Your homeboy’s gay. If you want to fight about it, get your knives and meet me under the stairs, I’ll knock all you bitches out.”
Big Walt became my friend because I respected him and his boundaries, and this big black gangster was willing to fight for his transgender friend. He still gives me hugs when I see him and calls me his Tranny Granny. He didn’t even talk to any transgendered before he met me. Now he’s family. So when I hear people argue for rights that we don’t deserve, I want to tell them to use their brains.
Think, if anyone in a dress can go in a ladies’ bathroom, some pervert will use a dress to try to rob and rape women and girls. I doubt there is a business in America that wouldn’t be willing to let a trans-person use the staff bathroom, and if they refuse, don’t go back.
As to minors wanting to transition, we have to err on the side of caution. Children are too easily manipulated and exploited. We have to hold off on anything that would be irreversible until we are adults. Yeah, I knew when I was 4, but it would have been a horrible mistake for me to transition so young. Children will always be cruel. So, here I am, 60 years later, living as a woman for the past 10 years, and I wouldn’t trade it for freedom because I’ve never been so free.
Daniel Harris #00622851
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Boyd Unit
200 Spur 113
Teague, TX 75860-2007
2 Comments
Having read your previous work, you dole out sexual favors and have had your share of relationships on top of this. This is your hustle.
You are amazing. I really wish more people were as outspoken about the wrongs of trying to be so excepting of everything and everyone. It’s crazy to me that people think that predators won’t use all of this to their advantage. Thank you for speaking up