Transgender Prisoner May Have Committed Suicide For Heartbreaking Reason
Transgender prisoner Vicky Thompson, a 21-year-old in Leeds, England, may have killed herself when she was transferred to an all-male prison, according to a new report from the BBC.
Thompson was discovered unresponsive at Armley prison on Nov. 13. She had previously been sentenced to a 12-month jail term (suspended for two years) on an undisclosed charge.
Authorities stated that she had violated the terms of that probation. When it was determined that she would be going to prison, Thompson reportedly told her boyfriend, Robert Steele, that she would kill herself if sent to an all-male prison.
Unfortunately, that’s where she ended up in spite of attorney Mohammed Hussain’s pleas to send her to a female prison instead on the grounds that she was “essentially a woman.”
The transgender prisoner had not yet undergone gender reassignment surgery. Even so, LGBT activists and media outlets like the Guardian were outraged when news broke of her death. Contributor Owen Jones chastised authorities in a recent piece entitled, “The Best Memorial to Vicky Thompson? To Fight for Trans Rights.”
“Vicky Thompson’s death should never have happened, but it must not be for nothing,” Jones wrote, stating that the “mental distress experienced by trans people is frightening.”
Research would seem to back up that assertion. According to a report from USA Today, about 40 percent of people identifying as transgender attempt suicide at some point in their lives. This, the news site notes, is approximately 10 times that of the general population.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first negative story to come out of Britain regarding the transgender prisoner population, and it’s not the first to come out of Britain in the last month.
A Guardian report from Oct. 29, shared the case of 26-year-old Tara Hudson, who was reportedly the victim of sexual harassment after being sent to an all-male prison at HMP Bristol.
Hudson had been sent to the prison as the result of a Boxing Day bar fight. She admitted to the assault, but had no idea what to expect when misplaced at the all-male facility.
Her mother, Jackie Brooklyn, shared the details of a harrowing phone call in which her daughter admitted to being sexually harassed, with inmates “screaming from their cells: ‘Tara, Tara, Tara, show us your t**s.'”
Since that story broke, a Change.org petition amassing close to 160,000 signatures has shown support for Hudson, but at this time, she continues to be incarcerated at the all-male facility.
According to the content of the petition, Hudson has undergone six years of gender reconstructive surgery, and has “lived her entire adult life as a woman.”
“She has been medically declared a woman by her doctor. She has received hormone treatment. She has received treatment for depression. She has utilized care services from a social worker.”
Furthermore, according to the petition, an inspection in 2014 of the prison where Hudson was sent found “levels of violence had risen since their last visit and ‘were now considerably higher than in similar prisons.’ The inspectors also reported that ‘not enough was being done to protect some vulnerable prisoners,'” such as the transgender prisoner population.
Sadly, whether through oversight or discrimination, no amount of change will bring back Vicky Thompson, a point that Tim Farron, the leader of the U.K.’s Liberal Democrats, made in a letter to Justice Secretary Michael Gove. He called it a tragedy that “could have and should have been avoided.”
But what do you think? Should the transgender prisoner population be sent to facilities with which they identify psychologically, or biologically?
Do you think that the British government bears responsibility for the fate of Vicky Thompson? Sound off in the comments section.
[Photo by David McNew/Getty Images]
