Amber Kim laughed weakly when a nurse at Monroe Correctional Advanced requested if she wished an dietary shake.
“I’m like, y’all know I’m on a starvation strike,” she mentioned. “Why are you providing Guarantee?”
Greater than two weeks in the past, the Washington Division of Corrections (DOC) forcibly eliminated Kim from the Washington Corrections Heart for Ladies (WCCW) in Gig Harbor, the place she’d lived for three-and-a-half years, and positioned her in Monroe, a males’s jail.
In line with the DOC, it’s the primary and solely time Washington has ever eliminated an incarcerated trans individual from gender-affirming housing. Monday is the seventeenth day of Kim’s starvation strike, and she or he mentioned she received’t eat till she’s returned.
For greater than every week after her switch, which she resisted, the DOC saved Kim in “administrative segregation,” or solitary confinement earlier than shifting her to the Inpatient Unit (IPU) on July 3.
In a telephone interview from the IPU, Kim mentioned medical doctors and nurses had been monitoring her and had given her rehydration salts. The starvation pangs had been depressing, she added, and she or he joked that simply speaking on the telephone felt like doing leaping jacks.
She anxious aloud about what’s going to occur if she’s pressured to remain on the males’s facility and what precedent her removing from gender-affirming housing may imply for different trans individuals within the system
“This transfer isn’t about simply me. … Having the ability to take a trans girl out of the lady’s jail for a single infraction the place nobody is harmed or victimized? That could be a horrible precedent to set,” she mentioned.
Unprecedented, and Probably Inappropriate
Kim’s switch got here shortly after the DOC discovered her responsible of her first infraction on the WCCW. The company mentioned a corrections officer within the medium-security unit found Kim and her roommate having intercourse of their shared cell. The division considers intercourse a “504 infraction,” prohibiting it together with different acts of intimacy, reminiscent of hugging, kissing, and holding fingers.
However intercourse can be a actuality in jail. Throughout the three-and-a-half years Kim lived at WCCW, the DOC recorded 33 504 infractions. Nonetheless, the state didn’t switch any of these girls who broke the foundations, together with Kim’s roommate.
“I need to be handled the identical as each different girl. They might not ship one other girl out of that facility … that’s not a stage of troublemaking that warrants this response,” she mentioned.
In a press release, DOC Spokesperson Chris Wright informed The Stranger that officers don’t make housing choices flippantly.
“The aim with housing choices is to make sure the security of all incarcerated people and to offer the very best help throughout incarceration to make sure profitable reentry into the group for these returning,” Wright mentioned.
DOC coverage permits officers to take away inmates from gender-affirming housing for documented, “goal” safety considerations, however division coverage additionally requires officers to contemplate the individual’s private security in step with the federal Jail Rape Elimination Act, or PREA.
A.D. Lewis, an legal professional who represents trans shoppers in California prisons and jails for the Jail Regulation Workplace’s Trans Past Bars undertaking, and who beforehand labored with incarcerated transgender individuals in Washington, referred to as the DOC’s resolution inappropriate.
“What we’re saying is when cis girls or non-trans girls have interaction on this habits, that’s not a security or safety concern. However when trans individuals do the very same factor–consensual habits, a rule violation–that will get them positioned on this realm of one thing that was an enormous security or safety concern,” he mentioned.
He continued: “I feel it’s actually essential for us to query what actually is ‘gender affirming’ about some of these insurance policies, when the state can at any time resolve that they’re going to maneuver you again and deal with you in a different way due to your gender.”
Digging into Totally different Therapy
The DOC adopted its first trans housing coverage in 2020, and solely 11 of the 250 trans individuals incarcerated in Washington have been moved to gender-affirming housing. DOC spokesperson Wright mentioned the bulk haven’t opted-in for causes of security or a want to stay inside their group, however he added that not everybody excited about gender-affirming housing can be positioned there.
“Every state of affairs is taken into account on a case-by-case foundation, with a concentrate on security each for the person and people who are housed on the facility,” he wrote.
The DOC declined to reply particular questions on Kim’s switch and the occasions that led to it, citing an October settlement with Incapacity Rights Washington that protects the confidentiality of transgender individuals incarcerated in Washington. To entry that data, Kim would wish to signal a Launch of Info to The Stranger.
Whereas Kim was unable to signal a Launch of Info earlier than the publication of this story, she beforehand signed over confidentiality to a HuffPost reporter who had chronicled her 15-year battle for a reputation change, gender-affirming care, and eventual switch to WCCW. The HuffPost reporter offered these emails with DOC to The Stranger.
In emails with the HuffPost, Wright mentioned Kim admitted a number of instances to consensual sexual contact. He later clarified that he shouldn’t have used the phrase “consensual” as a result of “technically” there was no such factor in jail.
At first, Kim had no motive to imagine the DOC would deal with her and her roommate in a different way. After the corrections officers pulled them from their cell, Kim mentioned the DOC positioned them each in restrictive housing and later discovered them responsible of the 504 infraction at a disciplinary listening to. The DOC then positioned them each in closed custody, which entails further supervision and limits the period of time they’ll spend exterior of their cells.
In March, somebody on the DOC leaked the disciplinary report concerning the alleged sexual encounter to the far-right publication the Nationwide Overview. That month, the outlet revealed a sensational article that performed on far-right tropes about transgender girls figuring out their method into girls’s areas with a purpose to sexually exploit them, whereas deadnaming and misgendering Kim.
The DOC considers the gender identities of inmates confidential medical data. In an e mail to HuffPost, the company expressed concern concerning the leak and mentioned it had assigned an investigator to find out how the privateness violation occurred. The DOC informed the Put up the investigation was ongoing.
Kim mentioned her punishment diverged from her roommate’s shortly after the publication of the Nationwide Overview article. Whereas she remained in restricted custody, officers returned her roommate to a decrease stage of safety, she mentioned. Whereas nonetheless in closed custody, a DOC counselor informed Kim they had been recommending her switch to a different facility.
The Switch
On the afternoon of Friday, June 21, correctional officers informed Kim they had been taking her to the opening, or the Intensive Administration Unit at WCCW, Kim mentioned. In response, she grabbed her deal with guide, glasses, and footwear. She mentioned correctional officers put her in handcuffs and escorted her to the IMU. As soon as there, they stripped her and dressed her in an orange jumpsuit, which was bizarre, she mentioned. Usually, guards would simply put her in a cell. Even weirder, on this occasion the guards locked her in waist restraints.
She mentioned she demanded to see paperwork, however the corrections officers informed her to not fear about paperwork. She mentioned the officers then walked her to the consumption hallway, however she refused to stroll by way of the door. After a brief forwards and backwards, Kim mentioned a sargeant ordered two correctional officers to slam her to the bottom. She mentioned they hogtied her and positioned her behind an SUV for the two-hour automotive experience to Monroe. She mentioned she arrived exhausted and unable to face.
The Division of Corrections informed The Stranger that the company follows a set of insurance policies to make sure the secure switch of incarcerated individuals from one jail to a different, even when, “as within the case of Kim, they try to assault employees.” Kim mentioned she didn’t assault anybody, and solely refused to maneuver.
“We do use wrist, waist, or leg restraints throughout transports,” DOC spokesperson Wright mentioned in an e mail. “When an individual is combative, further restraints are positioned on the person to extend security. Nonetheless, DOC doesn’t permit incarcerated people to be hogtied.”
Wright mentioned the DOC had paperwork for the switch, however The Stranger must file a public disclosure request for it.
“It’s a Shame”
Since her switch, activists with Black and Pink SeaTac and @support4amberkim on Instagram have organized phone campaigns to inundate DOC Well being Providers Deputy Director Ronna Cole and Secretary Cheryl Unusual with calls about Kim.
Hailey Ockinga, govt director of nonprofit Past These Partitions and a previously incarcerated transgender girl who advocates for queer individuals incarcerated in Washington State, referred to as what occurred to Kim “horrific” and discriminatory. She and different advocates have mentioned that Secretary Unusual, the primary brazenly queer chief of the company, ought to know higher than to place a transgender girl in a males’s jail the place she feels unsafe.
“[Strange] is an open member of our group who was lifted up and celebrated and is now permitting this to occur? It’s a shame. It’s disgraceful for her,” Ockinga mentioned.
In an e mail to the HuffPost, DOC spokesperson Tobby Hatley mentioned Kim may have the identical entry to gender-affirming property, therapy, and different programming alternatives at Monroe, and that she has been housed safely in different DOC services.
Kim doesn’t inform the identical story. She mentioned dwelling as a trans girl inside a males’s jail was unsafe, and it concerned a balancing act of harmful male egos.
In males’s services, Kim mentioned males focused her for random acts of violence and mentioned they wished to “make a lady out of her.” The identical males who referred to as her a “fag” within the chow corridor would later quietly proposition her out within the yard, after which yell extra if she refused. This harassment grew when she modified her title and took hormones. When she would discover a boyfriend, half backed off. If she didn’t discover somebody she favored, she mentioned she has made the commerce of intercourse for security.
If the DOC’s resolution to switch Kim stands, there’s no method out. She is serving a life sentence with out chance of parole for the homicide of her mother and father in 2006. She mentioned she believes that if she ends her starvation strike, she may discover herself again in survival mode.
“It is not anybody man, proper?” she mentioned. “Anybody individual. It’s the overwhelming majority of all of them.”
