Margaret Kiljoy
Appearances
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Hello, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and how to put them back together. I'm your guest host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this is an episode about both of those things. Not Margaret and Kiljoy, but about things falling apart and putting them back together. If you live in the U.S., you might have noticed... that things are falling apart.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
In the onslaught of new federal changes over the past few weeks, there is one that is both astoundingly important and also likely to disappear below people's radars. Because it affects prisoners. Trans prisoners. Prison is the place that society puts people to forget that they exist. It shouldn't be that way. Well, prisons ought not to be how we solve problems as a society at all.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
But it is the way that things currently are. Things that affect prisoners are routinely ignored, even though we live in a society built on the idea of incarceration. It's been in the news that us trans people somehow just sort of don't exist anymore. That everyone is either male or female, dictated at birth and immutable.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Obviously, this flies in the face of biological and social reality, and it's going to impact us trans people quite a bit. One group of people that it's going to impact very immediately, very dramatically, and very dangerously is trans prisoners. According to Bureau of Prison Statistics, there are currently 1,529 trans women and 744 trans men held in federal prisons.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And not all of them are being held in gender appropriate prisons already. As we're going to talk about with our guest in a bit, prisoners have to go through an incredible amount of dehumanization in order to have a chance of being placed in the right facility. But now, that isn't an option, and women are being moved into men's prisons. Does the idea of being a woman in a men's prison scare you?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
It should. It's terrifying. It's worse than what you might imagine. One trans woman prisoner who's using a pseudonym for her lawsuit, going by Maria Mo, has already filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop this new regulation. She is challenging it on both procedural and constitutional grounds.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
The government didn't go about this in the legal manner, and to house trans women with men goes against the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, as well as the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. I simply can't imagine putting a woman into men's prison as anything other than cruel and unusual punishment.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
The state can pretend that trans women aren't women, but the men in prison will not treat her like how they treat a cis man. On January 21st, the woman suing the prison system was told that she was going to be moved to men's prison after all of her records were suddenly changed to mark her male. Federal data says that trans prisoners are sexually assaulted at 10 times the rate of other prisoners.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And that's the state's own reporting on the issue. But you know who doesn't know how to effortlessly transition to ads after saying something as serious as that? It's me. I don't know how to effortlessly transition to ads after giving you a statistic like that.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
When we come back, we're going to talk about how serious the situation is, but also provide just an absolute incredible number of things that you can do at various levels of risk to support the people whose lives are about to be ruined by this policy change. Okay, and we're back. So,
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
To talk about how trans people fare in prison, I have brought on my friend with the most experience in prison, the former political prisoner Eric King. Eric served just shy of 10 years in prison for throwing a Molotov into an empty federal building one night in response to the Ferguson uprising of 2014.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Those were protests that were anti-police protests that started in the wake of the police killing of 18-year-old black man Michael Brown. Eric is also the co-editor of a book called Rattling the Cages, Oral Histories of North American Political Prisoners, which has a foreword by none other than Angela Davis and is worth checking out. Eric was released from the ADX Supermax in December 2023.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
He walked out of prison wearing a support trans kid shirt and has been vocal about his support for us as soon as he walked out the door. So, Eric, thanks for coming on It Could Happen Here. How are you? I'm doing really well. Glad to be back. Thank you so much. Yeah. So, you reached out to me about this story. what'd you call it? Like a policy change. Yeah. Executive order, I guess. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
You know, and basically we talked about like, how do we try and make sure that people know about what's happening? And I wanted to ask you, so you're, you're a cis man and you didn't have an easy time in prison, right? As far as I, as far as I understand, no, I think no one gets to have an easy time in prison is one of the, things, especially in a supermax.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah. You were not among the people who had it easier. And as I would follow your journey through the federal prison system, it seems like you had to defend yourself against both other prisoners and also prison staff. Is that a fair way to put it?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
mildly yeah yes that was what was going on can you tell me a bit about the experience of trans people in prison because when when you look at this executive order it sort of implies like all trans women are in women's prison and all trans men actually i literally have no idea where trans men are held i would rather if i was a trans man i'd probably rather be in women's prison i just anyway i don't know what was the situation like before this executive order
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And when you talk about the safety, I don't want to necessarily go on at great length about how trans women suffer in men's prisons, but it's probably worth talking about. Because you've described it as there's literal sexual slavery happening in the prisons. Is that a fair way to put it? Yeah, 110%, yes. Yes.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
yeah do you want to talk about the worst things that ever happened to you do you want to talk about uh you and i we did another episode on my other podcast um live like the world is dying talking about how to survive prison and in it you talked a little bit about what was necessary to kind of stand up for trans prisoners do you want to talk about that a little bit
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
You have to. Like, you have to live your ethics. One of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you about it and have you on this show is because, unfortunately, I mean, prison is kind of a concentration of the worst parts of society. I do not want to say the worst people in society.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
I believe it has much more to do with the incarceration and the way that people are forced to be, right, when they're incarcerated. There's a tangent. But have you heard the whole thing where there's no such thing as an alpha male wolf in the wild? I've only heard it from you and I loved it. Okay, I probably said this exact same thing last time we talked. Just in case. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And, and so it's like, it obviously is going to bring out the worst in people. The, one of the reasons I want to have you want to talk about this is because I think that the experiences that you're talking about, they're much more real and intense than most people on the outside are like really thinking. They're like, oh, that sounds bad.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
But then their brain kind of turns off and they stop imagining what bad looks like. And I think that this idea that we're going to have to stand up for our ethics regardless of the risk and cost to ourselves sometimes is what it takes to create a society that is resistant to fascism. I think it's the same energy that people are gonna have to do with like, no, you can't take my neighbors, right?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, I really like that way of phrasing it. Yeah, we can't forfeit the future. How can people support trans prisoners with what's going on right now? I don't know how in touch you are with people on the inside and things like that. How are people feeling? Like, what's the vibe? What can be done?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah. I mean, you actually kind of have said what people on the inside can do already, which is necessary and important, but people on the outside, what can people do?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah. That makes sense. I sort of know the answer to this, but I'm going to pretend like I don't know it at all. What's Black and Pink?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
I honor them for putting in that work because it's hard. And so someone who's listening, who's never considered being pen pals of the prisoner, could get in touch with Black and Pink and be hooked up with someone to write to?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah. Okay. So writing helps. When you talk about putting money on people's books, like who does that? Is that something you also could go through black and pink? Should people be doing their own fundraisers and then like working with prisoners that they've already made connections with? Like, How should people either plug in or start things?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Well, the way that I fundraise is that I have advertisers that interrupt me talking about anti-capitalist things. And here's one of those interruptions. And I'm going to go ahead and donate my pay for this episode to exactly what we're talking about. And here's ads. They are not donating. You can think of whatever you want about these ads. And we're back.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Okay, with this new executive order, like how are people feeling? Either inside or people who are doing prison abolition work or like how crisis does this feel? Like what's going on?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, that makes sense. What kind of support felt the most useful to you and other prisoners? I know you talked about this a little bit, but I'm curious about, you talk about visibility. Are protests outside of jails, do they make people feel good and welcome? Or does it make the guards crack down on everyone? I know that there's this habit of noise demonstrations every New Year's.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
What kind of stuff... felt good and what kind of stuff felt good but scary and what kind of stuff was just annoying. Like, I don't know. I'm just trying to find more stuff that people can do.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
If there's a noise demonstration with your name.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Oh, we shouldn't tell everyone that you're the, we have to keep it on the DL that you're the leader of Antifa. Yeah. For real, we dropped the ball. I know. Wait, I've been told I'm the leader of Antifa. You're my leader. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
What's the master plan here for how we're going to respond to this executive order? Because obviously, we're not necessarily in a position to immediately reverse this order and get women put into women's prison, which is a crazy thing to have to say. We're not going to be able to get women put into women's prisons. But is organizing with a local group, you create a group,
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And you basically like figure out who the local trans prisoners are in your area and make sure that you're communicating with them and that they're getting wellness calls from lawyers. And basically like just making sure that the prison knows that people are paying attention to the fact that there's now women in the men's prison.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, fair enough. There's other versions that are... Yeah, okay.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
No, no, but you're right. And it's like, it's funny. Cause it's like, in my mind, it's so hard to ring the alarm bells when all of the alarm bells are ringing and everyone's kind of ignoring alarm bells right now. I mean, I guess the answer is that we talk about it like this, but like, how do we make sure that people actually listen to the alarm bells that are happening right now?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And I think part of it is being really, unfortunately, brutally honest about what it's like to be a woman in men's prison.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
I mean, as a not-currently-in-prison trans woman, one of the reasons I think this almost happens, I mean, it happens because of cruelty is the point, but it's terrifying. You've actually experienced the thing that's terrifying. It is terrifying, the idea of going into...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
prison in the United States, especially maximum security prison, potentially, especially men's prison, both as a man or a trans woman, I wouldn't want to be in men's prison.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
No, that's fair. Like, to be honest, like, I think about, and this is like, maybe more honest than I usually am on this podcast. Like, you know, I don't do as much frontline activism as I did. And part of that's like, oh, I'm like aging and I have other work that I do. And part of it's like, I came out as trans, you know?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Part of it is like, I never liked the idea of like, because I always was trans and the idea of like, Being surrounded by only men was viscerally terrifying. But now in particular, like, it's just such a... It's a mindfuck. It's terrifying.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And, you know, I feel like one of my, like, main roles is to try and help people be like, look, we're in this together enough that you should be scared, but you should get through the fear. But it's like, the fear of prison is like such a... I mean, it's part of the reason that people say like, no one is free until everyone is free.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
As long as there is a single person in prison, you are not free because your freedom can be taken away from you at any point. And that fear of prison, it's funny. Okay, I'm almost done with this rant. You know, people have kind of like figured out at this point that like, Certain branches of Christianity will use the fear of hell to force people to be good by their definition of good, right?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And it's a scare tactic. It's terrorism. It is like a, you know, you better behave or infinite suffering awaits you. But then even the people who are critical of that haven't necessarily wrapped their head around that. The existence of prisons...
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
especially the existence of punitive prisons like the sort of theoretical perfect model of the norwegian prison or whatever where you're just sort of separated from society which i suspect is not actually i suspect norwegian prison actually kind of sucks but the american prison system is a prison system that exists to make you on the outside not feel free like because it can be taken away from you and you can be thrown in prison
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, and it's hard because you also want to like, while also not wanting to like lead that struggle, right? Like I think that like white people putting themselves on the line for black liberation is like super important, but then obviously you can get into.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, totally. Well, any last words for our audience around this particular issue?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
We are going to get through it because even as individuals... We might not, right? But that's just true about being alive, right? Literally none of us are going to get through being alive alive, right? At some point, that's going to stop working for us. And they can't get rid of us. We have always been here. We will always be here. As long as there are humans, there are going to be trans people.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
There are going to be queer people. There are going to be all of the identities that they're trying to destroy cannot be destroyed, even if us as individuals might. But again, we weren't going to get out of life alive anyway. That's what I hold on to. I don't know about everyone who's listening, but the thing that I hold on to is just literally, I was like, well, I wasn't, I'm not immortal.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
You know? It's got a time limit. Yeah. And all we can do is to say, go back to one of the first things that you said. We just kind of can't compromise our ethics. You know? Like, there's like balancing acts, right? Where you have to think like, Well, I probably shouldn't do something where I like while out and get myself killed and accomplish nothing. Fight to win. Yeah, exactly.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
And some of fighting to win is knowing when not to fight and things like that. Right. But, but not in a secretly, you're just actually doing it at a cowardice way. You actually like have to be strategically being like, where and when should I engage in what ways? And there are so many different ways that people can engage. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, and do you want to talk about your book?
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Yeah, you were just an undercover journalist. Just a real deep, undercover, solitary confinement.
Behind the Bastards
It Could Happen Here Weekly 167
Awesome. All right. Well, people should check out both of those things and take care of people inside. And I hope that we'll have you on again soon. Yay. Thank you so much.