It emerged today that 26 year old trans woman Tara Hudson has been sentenced to 12 weeks in the all-male Bristol Prison.
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Magistrates sent her to HMP Bristol despite living as a woman all her adult life and having undergone six years of gender reconstruction surgery because she is still legally a male. I just feel the men are going to go after her. It’s going to be humiliating.
Earlier this week we reported Tara’s mum Jackie Brooklyn had written to the prison governor raising fears for her daughter.
Ruth Hunt, chief executive of the LGBT charity Stonewall, described the decision to put Hudson in an all-male prison, despite her identifying as female, as “extremely concerning”.
There is now a Change.org petition to allow Tara to serve her sentence at a female prison.
The 26-year-old’s mother Jackie Brooklyn started an online petition to get her moved to a women’s jail and yesterday the petition went viral online with more than 50,000 people signing it from as far afield as the USA and Japan.
Bath Conservative MP Ben Howlett, who sits on the Women and Equalities select committee, said: “We’re doing all we can in order to get Tara out of that all-male environment and into an all-female environment”.
Hudson is a qualified makeup artist and wants to pursue it as a career but had been off work due to her health and a social worker has cared for her, she said.
“This is clearly sensitive issue but there is guidance available from the Home Office on this matter and yet Bath Magistrates have chose to sentence Tara, a woman, to a male prison”, he said.
HM Inspectorate of Prisons carried out the inspection last autumn and said levels of violence had risen since their last visit and “were now considerably higher than in similar prisons”.
Hudson’s mother says her daughter receives abuse for her gender status and is on medication for depression, alongside her hormone replacement course. It is understood that this is because she does not possess a gender recognition certificate and her passport says she is still a man.
Ms Brooklyn criticised the treatment of her daughter by the judicial system.
Nor do I think that a medical condition should have to be common for the law and administration in our country to be adjusted to take account of it.
‘The primary focus should be the safety and wellbeing of those involved’.
The same report found not enough was being done to “protect a few vulnerable prisoners” inside, a poignant concern considering the impact of societal marginalisation on mental health.
On Monday evening, a spokesperson from the prison service said a person needs a gender recognition certificate to change prison.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “It is longstanding policy to place offenders according to their legally recognised gender”.
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“To be put into an all male prison, it’s like me being put into a male prison”.
