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Transgender Inmate Raped 8th Time After Request Was Denied Remember that transgender inmate who wanted to get get hormone treatments while in jail? Well, the Via Think Progress : Early this year, a transgender woman filed a federal lawsuit demanding better protections, alleging she has been raped seven times, punched, stomped, raped and knocked unconscious. Now, in the midst of her legal battle, Ashley Alton Diamond claims she was raped again and pressured to stay silent about it. Diamond, who began her prison stint in 2012, filed a lawsuit last February, saying she was raped in more than one correctional facility and denied hormonal treatments that she had previously taken for 17 years. While behind bars, she tried to commit suicide and castrate herself, later explaining that “[she] would rather die” than be raped in the future. In April, she filed a motion to be transferred out of the Georgia State Prison, arguing she was brought there in retaliation for filing the lawsuit months before and detailing the ways she was sexually harassed there as well. But her request was denied on the grounds that she did not prove “there is a substantial risk of serious harm and that the defendants are deliberately indifferent to that risk.” Due to a Justice Department intervention, Diamond is taking hormonal treatments again, but a status report filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represents Diamond, alleges Diamond was raped in June, at the very prison she was trying to get away from in April. According to the report, Diamond’s cellmate raped her and threatened her to keep quiet. The report also claims the GSP warden disclosed what happened to her to other inmates, who have subsequently harassed and threatened her for speaking up. “Ms. Diamond presently is afraid of leaving her dormitory, including for meals, without an escort,” it reads. The lawsuit is still pending, but Diamond’s case casts a light on the systemic mistreatment of incarcerated trans women, which stems in large part from being locked up with men. Sexual abuse is a prevalent problem. For instance, another trans woman serving time in Georgia was forced share a protective custody cell with the man she was supposed to be protected from — then subsequently raped by him. Some women are gang raped by fellow inmates, and others are sexually assaulted by prison staff. But abuse takes other forms as well, including the denial of hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgery, as well as the use of solitary confinement as a form of protective custody. Do you think the inmate should have granted the change of transfer???

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Transgender Inmate Raped An 8th Time After Request For Transfer To Women’s Prison Was Denied