Hi, my name is Calipree and I’m a transgender female in a men’s prison. Ever since I got arrested in September 2020, I was forced to choose which race to gang up with. I am gay and transgender, half-white and half-Mexican, but I had to hide all this in West Valley Detention Center. I chose to join with the whites because I couldn’t join the Blacks and because the Mexicans or South Siders don’t allow you to see your doctor or get any mental health support because they are afraid of people snitching. Anyway, I was beat up multiple times by the whites for simple mistakes like leaving my soap in the shower and for accepting food from a Black person, which is not allowed. These type of politics are supposedly not allowed by the jail, but the officers know about all this and they know who each rep is for each race. The officers actually encourage politics here and talk one-on-one with each rep in private in order to get the low down on intel of what’s going on so that they can have some type of control.
It is very important when you get arrested to tell them if you are gay or transgender. “I am gay,” or “I am bisexual,” or “I am transgender,” so that the officers will put you in an LGBTQ friendly dorm called Alternative Lifestyles. I didn’t know this at the time. I had to stay stealth the whole time I was in the regular dorms in jail, or they would have probably killed me or beat me unconscious if they found out I was transgender. So, after I signed a deal and got transferred to prison in 2022, I had had enough. I told officers I was gay so that they’d put me in SNY [sensitive needs yard] or PC, private custody, which is a little safer because LGBTQ people are protected by GBG, or Gay Boy Gangsters or Gays Backing Gays.
But the reception center in Delano is absolutely terrible. It’s filthy with roaches and rats, and the swamp coolers don’t even work, so it was absolutely miserable in a packed dorm of two hundred people in the middle of summer. It was about ninety-five degrees throughout the day, it said on the thermostat that hung on the wall, and would cool off to about 85 degrees at night time. The guards have their own offices to cool down in whenever they want.
But, after Delano, I went to CRC [CA Rehabilitation Center] in Chino, also known as “Hotel California.” 80% of prisoners here do not get to stay in the original hotel which is old but nice—a five-person cell with a nice view. I was stuffed into a hot and dusty barrack with a hundred men. No roaches here, yes, but mice, rats, spiders, flies, and ants—lots of ants–and no space to move around; it’s like basically we’re a bunch of sardines packed into a can. This is a level two 50/50 yard, which is 50% SNY and 50% GP [general population], which of course causes problems. And of course there are not supposed to be any politics as the prison policy, but prison guards openly encourage politics here so that they can talk to the reps and have some knowledge and control of what goes on here.
Nobody knew I was transgender. I wasn’t — it wasn’t safe here for me to be a transgender, I knew that. I was put into a dorm and all the reps wanted to see my paperwork to make sure I wasn’t a ‘chomo’ [child molester], which I am not. I have good paperwork, but I didn’t have it yet on me, so they robbed me of everything, took all my possessions, and beat me up. I then ran for the door but ended up getting written up for trying to run out of the dorm or possibly escaping. I was running for my life though. The reps then lied to the guards and said that I traded all my belongings for drugs, which is a lie, and that I was an addict and needed to go because I was causing trouble.
So, since then, since my dad is also a police officer, he got word from the prison that I had sold all my belongings for drugs, which was a total lie. I would never trade any of my property for drugs. I was on a very limited income from my dad and was barely able to get just the things I needed. Since then my dad will not give me any money or buy me any packages whatsoever because he heard from his buddies that I was a drug fiend who hawked all my property for drugs just to get high.
So, I needed to get out of CRC because they were just going to put me back in the same dorm, and so the only way that I was able to escape was I had to threaten an inmate’s life, which I did—and they put me in the hole for threatening an inmate’s life. And when I was in the hole, I started getting transgender hormone therapy, finally. I decided to not hide who I was anymore. I would be attacked and victimized either way, I suppose. And the surprising thing is after being openly a transgender female in the men’s prison, the inmates respected me finally and left me alone, but the guards, a select few, prejudiced against transgenders, they didn’t. I was now getting write-ups for every little thing I did. I was constantly being watched.
My write-ups and bad reputation followed me everywhere I went; to Chino Prison B-yard, where I had went right after I got out of the hole. Here guards would make me strip totally naked in front of the other inmates just to embarrass me, and my breasts are developing. They would ignore my orange transgender access card with my female search preference. I was put on C-status and wasn’t allowed to leave my cell or get any property; not allowed anything in my cell besides books. I tried to go to pill call once, but since I was supposedly not allowed out of my cell, they pushed the alarm on me and they handcuffed me, took me back into R&R [reception and release] where there’s no cameras, and I was beat while I was still chained up. I went to the hospital the next day with herniated disc and spinal stenosis. I was in the hospital for five days and I got back Christmas 2024.
Back in my cell, I had curtains up so that I could use the toilet without being seen, and an officer came into my cell and ripped them down. And I was holding a cup of water and the officer went up to me, slapped the cup of water out of my hand, pushed the button, and then tackled me to the floor, accusing me of “gassing” them, which is throwing a liquid at an officer, which is considered an assault on a police officer. So, I had to go to the hole for six months. They did this because I had told on them for when they beat me in R&R. See, this was their way of getting back at me and getting rid of me and making me look like a bad inmate who assaults staff.
I have tried to get transferred to a female prison, but I have been labeled a program failure and a threat to safety. I cut my wrists so bad after this that I almost died. I was rushed to the hospital with a tourniquet on each arm, then given a blood transfusion and stitched up. I had hit both arteries. I had intended to die. I was sent to ICF, which is where I am now—Intermediate Care Facility—in Soledad, which is a hospital setting for people who need, you know, severe mental help, who need help. So, I needed help. So, now I am here for three to six months and here the staff and inmates are at least both decent people.
That’s about it. That’s about it. I mean, there’s just minor little issues like it’s hard to find a clean towel here, you know? But I mean, you get one towel, you just gotta keep washing it, you know. But here it’s actually a nice environment. So, I feel like I’m on the track to success now and with everything that’s happened to me, if I can just be write-up free, I’m sure you know, I can find a transgender — they call them a “transgender hub” prison where it’s safe for transgenders, and people are more liberal and accepting of our kind of lifestyles.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
