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'I Was Scared to Sleep': LGBT Youth Face Violence Behind Bars

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

'I Was Scared to Sleep': LGBT Youth Face Violence Behind Bars By Daniel Redman June 21, 2010 The Nation Over the phone, Krystal has a calm and lilting Southern accent. She identifies as a woman now, but when she entered Louisiana's juvenile justice system at 12 years of age, she presented herself as a boy and used male pronouns. Today, she's 18 and was just recently released from the system. Being closeted about her gender identity was never an option for her. "It's very obvious with me because of how I walk, talk, the way I do things," she says. And while her sentencing judge had told her that she wouldn't be in prison for long, it was five years before a sympathetic counselor made a formal request for her release. In her letter to the judge, the counselor mentioned in passing that Krystal had confided in her that she was probably transgender, and that she was in a romantic relationship with another boy at the facility...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).