This is an interesting time in the changing legal landscape relating to gay and lesbian prisoners, but public and scholarly attention is lacking. Rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered prisoners are often conceived of either in long-established concerns relating to guards’ discrimination or in newly popular attention to the special needs of transgendered prisoners. Although these are important issues, such a focus can lead advocates and courts to overlook the evolving standards (or stagnant policies, despite apparent potential for progress) regarding the rights of gay and lesbian prisoners.
This article discusses three recent legal and social developments that have application in the prison context but are yet to be fully explored there. It begins by examining an area that receives much attention in most every other aspect of society: same-sex marriage and correlative rights. Visitation and other rights are vastly different for gay and lesbian prisoners unless the progress in broader society in this regard is brought to bear upon the prison system. The article next discusses the First Amendment right to access information – perhaps the most traditional of civil liberties that is still overlooked when it comes to prisoners – and notes the special discrimination against LGBT publications.
Finally, the article touches upon the controversial topic of homosexual protective custody, and notes that judicial unwillingness to require standards has left the issue stagnated and ill-explored.
Spousal Visitation Rights
In most regards, visitation policies vary too greatly and are too dependent upon individualized factors relating to each prisoner to be subject to easy categorization or analysis based on the impact on gay and lesbian prisoners. However, there is one form of visitation that is categorically and uniformly limited to spouses, if provided at all:
conjugal visits. Contrary to popular conceptions, the defining characteristic of the value of a conjugal visit is not sex but the opportunity to spend time with one’s life partner. The visits are more accurately referred to as “family visits” by the prison systems which allow them. As one scholar explains, “The term ‘conjugal’ refers to the rights that are the recognized inherent rights of married couples in society and ‘[s]ex is but one component of these rights.’ Conjugal rights encompass the rights of a couple to associate together, build a home together and enjoy all the privileges of an interpersonal relationship together. Therefore, conjugal visits enable inmates to enjoy these attributes while they are incarcerated. Conjugal visits encourage and promote normal family behavior, a critical component of the rehabilitation process.”2
Title: Gay Man & Lesbian Woman in Prison Documentary HQ
Published on Dec 30, 2015
Uploaded by:
Violence Documentary
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