February 28, 2025
Trans people who are incarcerated in Maryland jails and prisons deserve safety, dignity, and respect. But the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) employs policies and practices that harm the physical and psychological health and safety of trans people in their custody. DPSCS fails to house trans people based on gender identity, does not address the violence they face from staff and other incarcerated people and instead holds them in solitary confinement, and fails to provide sufficient access to health care, among other violations of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act and other laws. In 2024 alone, DPSCS paid approximately $835,000 in settlements in cases involving mistreatment of trans people.
To hold DPSCS accountable, we are advocating with fellow members of the Trans Rights Advocacy Coalition (TRAC) for language in the 2025 budget that would require the department to issue a report on its treatment of incarcerated trans people. TRAC has advocated for similar budget language in the past, resulting in a 2023 report from DPSCS that failed to acknowledge serious violations of federal protections for trans people. We have been working with DPSCS to review and revise department policies, including the medical evaluations manual, but the pace of change is slow, and additional reporting is needed to keep up the pressure to review an additional 28 policies that affect trans people. Read more about this advocacy in the Baltimore Banner.
