The sixteenth year is a turning point in every young person’s life; high school, drivers license, transcending from youth to adulthood. For me it was the year I was arrested, indicted and convicted of capital murder. I never got to hold my driver’s license. After passing my driver’s test I was arrested before my actual license came in the mail. My mother brought it to the county jail and showed it to me.
Being raised in a single parent home along with my little brother by our mother was a great challenge for me and one of the many factors that contributed to me getting into trouble. My memories of my mother are of her working a lot and doing all she could to provide for my brother and me. I inherited her work ethic and stubbornness. That same stubbornness got me into a lot of trouble and was my saving grace once I was incarcerated. I had heard all the horror stories of prison life, rape, beatings, abandonment, loneliness and despair. Nothing really prepares someone for the harsh reality of prison life. Because of my charge and sentence I was sent to one of the worse prison units in the state at the time.
At 17 years old I was sent to the George Beto Unit in Tennessee Colony. I spent 7 months in the county jail awaiting trial and mentally preparing myself for the inevitable. I will never forget the moment I walked up to the I-wing door, mattress over one shoulder, bag of meager possessions in the other hand. I stood there feeling like I could very well be dead in the next few minutes. The guard walked up, put the key in the door and looked at me and said, “Boy, go put your things in the house, go to the back of the dayroom and wait, whatever you do, do not sit down on any of those benches.”
Even though prison was integrated in 1991 it was still segregated. Every race had their own benches that they sat on and you had to earn the right to sit on your races bench by fighting. It was considered disrespectful to sit on another races bench regardless of your status in the hierarchy of the prison. So, I found myself standing at the back of the dayroom, all 5’5” 155 lbs of me looking at these guys what were twice my age and 3 times my size knowing there was no way I could win a fight against any of them, but determined to fight nonetheless.
In those days, a new person to prison or “new boot” was given three choices once they entered the prison environment. You could fight, you could go to commissary and pay protection or you could have sex in exchange for staying safe.
As I stated before, I was stubborn. I chose to fight, and fight I did, a lot, everywhere at anytime. It might be one guy, or it might be 3 or 4. As the days passed and people started to realize I wasn’t going for either of the other two choices they started to gain respect for me and eventually I earned my right to sit on the bench with the other white inmates who had been through the same things.
For the most part, guys entering the system are no longer required to subject themselves to such treatment. I say for the most part because every prison unit has its own personality and even though prison as a whole is safer, it is still rough in some places. The state locks up these kids with huge sentences and no reprieve from the heat and despair and it takes a person who might have been savable and turns them into an animal.
The reason prison for the most part is safer now is because of the creation of PREA. The Prison Rape Elimination Act changed so many things about prison life. More than anything, it made the administration start doing their job and being responsible for our safety. Being mistreated by the guards and other inmates was never part of our punishment when we were sentenced. In the early days of my sentence there were no repercussions for hurting someone, two weeks in solitary confinement at the worst. You really had to hurt someone to get that. Hitting someone with a weapon or stabbing someone, and then only if a guard actually saw you do it. Snitching was not as bad as it is now. Now people tell on everybody for everything. No repercussions. So, prison is safer in the aspect of getting beat up for nothing, but worse because there is no respect.
The idea of respect in prison is lost on a lot of people in this place. Their idea of respect is really fear. I believe this is strongly because PREA has made the penalties for fighting pretty harsh. The use of a weapon is even worse. Because of that knowledge, inmates say and do whatever they want because people don’t want to face the penalty of caving their heads in. So the disrespect is rampant among this younger generation and it has made doing time difficult in that regard.
For people like myself, a safer prison has allowed me to express myself in ways I wouldn’t have dared 25 years ago. Not only can I live out loud so to speak, but I can also actually talk to people and share my journey. A confluence of things in this place has led me to where I am in my journey today; trial and error, soul searching, being honest with myself, my journey through college and now the toastmasters program.
Some people tell me I am crazy for doing what I am doing, exposing myself to judgment and ridicule from those around me. I look at my life as an opportunity to change people’s minds about people of the LBGTQ+ community in prison. So much is misunderstood about people in our community. In order to be a light and help people to better understand people like me I had to come to a true understanding of myself and admit some things that I was afraid to admit and explore.
I was raised in a very Christian home and the idea of talking to anyone about my desires to wear make-up and women’s clothes was not fathomable. In prison, I was never around good examples of the person I wanted to be. It came to a point in the summer of 2020 that I had to make a decision. I was so miserable that I was suicidal.
So, my decision was to finally admit the truth to myself and live my life accordingly or die. The truth is that I have always known I was transgender, but was afraid to take that step and face whatever consequences came with it. Now that I have, I feel so much better about myself and my outlook on life. I try to balance my need to express myself in a feminine way with the rules of this institution and not jeopardize what I have going for myself.
The mindset of this place seems to be changing. We shall see. At the end of the day, we are all attempting to master this thing called life.