“Out of the Hell-Hole into the Calming Storm,” by Grace DeTrevarah. Hey Family: It’s me again. Grace…I would like to first say that’s it’s so refreshing to be Out of Corrections and into the “World” where being a Transgender was the focus of my movement. It continues to be so fitting to be out of […]
Archive | SRLP Prisoner Advisory Committee
We believe that storytelling is a revolutionary act…
so, we created this space to share the activities and stories of our Prisoner Advisory Committee (PAC).
Coming Home… It’s Almost Surreal! – Letter from a former PAC Member
“Coming Home… It’s Almost Surreal!” by Grace DeTrevarah. Hey Family… My name is Grace. I have been home for a short while. I was incarcerated in Wallkill, Fishkill and other facilities of Medium status. Being a Black Transgender woman in a Male facility with a feminine and womanly appearance was problematic from intake at Downstate […]
Voices against bullying: Laverne Cox and PAC member Laura Nicole Campbell
In an unprecedented victory for LGBT representation in mainstream media, Netflix’s popular and highly-acclaimed digital TV series Orange is the New Black features Sophia, a character who is an incarcerated trans woman of color played by the outspoken transgender advocate and actress Laverne Cox. The dramedy portrays the lives of women in an upstate NY prison, a topic with […]
PAC Members show support for Chelsea Manning
For background, in 2010 the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks published classified U.S. Army intelligence files determined to have been supplied by former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Following her arrest, Manning plead guilty to leaking military information and was convicted of twenty-two related offenses. This debacle, along with her recent coming out as a transgender […]
Reflections on new GID policy, from PAC
“A Win For Transgender Prisoners,” by R. Cepeda. There has been a recent victory for transgender prisoners in the New York State Prison system regarding hormone treatment for those with GID (Gender Identity Disorder). In the past, transgender prisoners could not get hormones unless they could prove that they were getting treatment from a doctor […]
New GID Policy for NYS Prisons, Yet Healthcare Still Inaccessible
At the end of last month, The Private Manning Support Network posted a letter that details Ms. Chelsea Manning’s intentions to fight for hormone replacement therapy (HRT), gender-consistent “real life experience” (RLE) and “sex-reassignment surgery” (SRS) within the correctional facility she will be serving her thirty-five year sentence, the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort […]
Introducing the Prisoner Advisory Committee Blog!
The Sylvia Rivera Law Project’s collective model prioritizes the voices of the people most affected by the systems of violence and oppression we fight daily. This model of community involvement led to the creation of our Prisoner Advisory Committee (PAC); a committee of trans, intersex, gender non-conforming people and allies who are currently incarcerated in […]