Hi, y’all. This is Bambi again. I just wanted to kind of give everybody a little update on some things that are still continuing to happen with the whole transgender and the LGBT thing with the Indiana Department of Corrections.
When you’re trying to have a successful and healthy transition as a transgender woman, there’s a lot of emotional and painful obstacles that you have to fight through, especially when you don’t have any moral support or even any family support.
There has been so much hatred that has been thrown at me being incarcerated within what they call this, “the belly of the beast,” known as the Indiana Department of Corrections. It’s just, it doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t seem fair. Nothing seems to change. Like I’ve said before, my voice alone is not going to change anything.
In 2020, I was rearrested for violating my parole and sent back to prison. While I was at one of [the] D.O.C. ‘s contracted facilities, known as G.O., I began to experience and see firsthand that D.O.C. has no resources or any support groups for trans women or trans men. So, unfortunately, I ended up messing up deliberately and I got myself into trouble with the federal courts because I knew I would be treated so much better in a federal prison.
I was just informed recently, just this last Friday, that I was being put in for a transfer to another Level 3 facility that is closest to the Indianapolis federal court system, so I can go back and forth to court. I was told that I had a court date, and I really don’t know what’s going to happen.
And it’s hard not having any moral support or any family. My biological mother actually, like, it’s really sad, she disowned me, because I told her that I’m a girl and that I was taking hormone therapy and she told me that I’m going to burn in hell because God hates, quote, fags and queers. And when she told me that, it hurts.It really, really hurts. Because knowing that when you wake up every day and you know that you don’t have any family at all, that feeling is so unbearable, and it’s so traumatizing that it makes me feel like I don’t even want to transition anymore.
And I’ve caused myself to want to be able to stay in the prison system for a very long time because this is all I know.
Nobody, you know, there’s no support, there’s no support groups, there’s nothing out there. You know, and when it’s your own family that has disowned you, it is a feeling that is, you can’t even explain that type of feeling to somebody that don’t understand and that doesn’t know what it’s like. I have recently in the last several months, I have been quote unquote “self medicating” and that’s how I am able to escape reality and escape the pain that I go through and I shouldn’t have to go through that.
I shouldn’t have to deal with that. Because there’s no, there’s nobody that really, that really understands what we go through. Especially being in the LGBT community and being incarcerated. And it, it hurts. It hurts really, really bad. Um, there’s, being in here with all these men who hate me. Or they want to constantly prey on me like I’m a fresh piece of meat to them, and it’s, it’s sickening, it’s disgusting.
I don’t like being in a men’s facility. I feel like I should be what my gender is. I’m a female, I’m a woman. And I don’t feel that it’s right that I have to be stuck within these walls within a men’s facility.
Here at the Wabash Correctional Facility, the administration and even the officers have what they call the quote, “good old boys system,” which means that when a correctional officer does something wrong or anybody does something wrong, their supervisor or another co-worker, all they’ll do is just cover it up and make it look like it never happened.
I have yet been able to experience any kind of good transition. All I’ve ever wanted to do is have a healthy, successful transition and have a relationship not with somebody else. But I want to have a relationship with myself. So I can better myself even more than what I’ve done. It’s hurtful to me and it hurts.
I was also told that a part of my transfer was because I’ve been speaking to the news media about this facility and also because they feel that I’m a security problem because of my transgender complaints.
During my two years stay here at the Wabash Valley, I can honestly say that there’s only been one person that became a special person to me, and because he helped me become the better person I am today. He was always there for me and still is there for me when I need somebody to talk to was a voice and a lot of positive reinforcement. He is a very, very good friend of mine. He’s a legend within the Indiana Department of Corrections, and he is a part of the penalty […] Christopher […] Trotter, Thank you, Chris, I really appreciate everything you have done for me in the positive. Thank you, thank you so so much.
With that being said, because of the way D.O.C. is, they do not provide transgender-affirming things for us girls, and it’s hard to acquire the hygiene and the clothing that we need. And they don’t provide it to us, they expect us to buy it ourselves. And for us girls that don’t have the money to do it. If anybody would be willing to help me out, I would like to be able to start a fundraiser where funds can be raised. To be able to put in them by offender trust account by going to connectnetwork.com. Or you can place it right into my account. And it is sad that I have to go through and to be able to raise these funds, because D.O.C. should be able to provide these items for me, such as hygiene, feminine shampoos, panties, and bras and things that I need for my transition. And I can’t get those things, because they expect us to buy them on our own every day, I’m forced to wear boxers, and I don’t like that it makes me feel disgusting. It makes me feel hated. And I can’t stand it, I get mocked, I get laughed at.
And for me to be able to come on here to this Prison Radio and to record things, I feel like it’s the only way that my voice is gonna get heard because nobody else is willing to hear it. Like I said, if anybody is willing to be able to try to help me in any way that they can, by doing a fundraiser, even a GoFundMe, I would very much appreciate it.
All you have to do is go to connectnetwork.com and go to my center trust account. And whatever donations you can make is very fine with me. You can contact me through Connect network through the messaging system as well. You set up an account, you can text message me on my tablet, or you can contact me by writing me through snail mail. My name is Roger King 250624. I go by Bambi Nicole King. The address here at the prison is Wabash Valley Correctional Facility is P.O. box 1111 Carlisle, Indiana 47838. Thank you for listening to this anybody that is willing to do anything they can as another voice and to help me in any way possible. Thank you.
