International Journal of Transgender Health

Health and Wellbeing of Incarcerated Transgender, Gender Diverse and Non-Binary People

The health and wellbeing of transgender, gender diverse, and non-binary people (trans) across regions and globally continue being subsumed within and shaped by cisnormative, cisgenderist, and regulatory frameworks. In recent years, their rights and visibility have been subjected to intensified and disproportionate political and legal scrutiny that directly impacts their safety and access to critical services in healthcare, housing, education, employment, and legal assistance among others. The increasingly hostile socio-political and medical-legal climate surrounding trans rights (as well as their families and medical providers) is evident in various legislative forces, including discriminatory legislation, criminalization, militarized policing, policy bans and restrictions, and the strategic ‘weaponization’ of trans issues by right-wing populists alongside pervasive societal prejudice. Such anti-trans sentiment and legislation are prevalent in many parts of the world, where countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North and Latin America criminalize and persecute trans communities. These conditions have forced many trans people to migrate in search of safety, asylum, or refuge, yet restrictive immigration and asylum policies often reproduce the same harms, leaving many exposed to detention, deportation, or denial of essential protections.  This global trend has coincided with a marked increase in anti-trans rhetoric, publications, and public demonstrations in various countries, including Australia, the UK, the US, and across Latin America. 

Parallel to this, carceral environments, often equated as ‘totalistic institutions’, represent sites of intensified oppressive logics, political agendas, and social forces, underscoring the role of the carceral industrial complex in sustaining structural, systemic discrimination, and everyday violence against trans people. Globally, trans people are incarcerated at significantly higher rates than their cisgender counterparts. Once incarcerated, trans people frequently endure daily discrimination, psychological distress, physical and sexual violence, and heightened vulnerability to sexually transmissible infections, including HIV. Moreover, trans people are also routinely misgendered, denied recognition of their gender, and placed in facilities that do not align with their gender identity and experience, which further exposes them to harassment and violence. These experiences are compounded by acute intersectional disadvantage, particularly given the over-representation of racialized, economically marginalized, and aging people within carceral populations. Research from different parts of the world further highlights the multi-layered barriers trans people face in accessing gender-affirming and psychological care along with primary care while incarcerated. These include the absence of supportive policies, restrictive regulations, discriminatory staff attitudes, and pervasive lack of cultural and clinical competence.  

In light of these challenges, within some of the most totalistic environments and non-agentic circumstances, trans people, through grit, resilience, and ingenuity, still manage to navigate ways to embody, express, and enact resilience, agency, and self-determination in authentic, innovative, and unique ways.   

In recognition of these multifaceted and complex contexts, this Special Issue invites research submissions exploring the nexus of 1) transgender, gender diverse, and/or non-binary people; 2) health and wellbeing; and 3) diverse carceral settings (see extensive list of suggested settings below), globally. We welcome original research, including qualitative, quantitative, archival, case study, and mixed-methods designs, as well as structured literature reviews, policy analyses, and conceptual pieces. 

Research showcasing innovations designed to reform, enhance or improve the immediate harms and current conditions for incarcerated trans people, including ‘success stories’ are also welcome, as are papers that explore how intersecting identities may inform the health and wellbeing of diverse trans incarcerated populations. Articles exploring how to advance a transformative agenda with the long-term vision to dismantle the systemic and structural factors that oppress, discriminate, and punish trans people and act as pathways to incarceration, are of particular interest. 

Papers for the special issue may explore the relationship between 1) transgender, gender diverse and/or non-binary people; 2) health and wellbeing in the following contexts and settings: 

• Prison and Jails 
• Immigration Detention Centers 
• Psychiatric Hospitals 
• Forensic Psychiatric Wards 
• Secure Rehabilitation Centers 
• Juvenile Detention Centers 
• Residential Treatment Facilities 
• Border Processing Centers  
• Deportation Holding Facilities 
• Transit Centers 
• Immigration Detention Camps 
• Electronic Monitoring and House Arrest 
• Community Corrections 
• Military Detention or Disciplinary Facilities 
• Immigration Courts 
• Asylum/Humanitarian/Refugee Settings