Narratives of Transgender People Detained in Prison: The Role Played by the Utterances “Not” (as a Feeling of Hetero- and Auto-rejection) and “Exist” (as a Feeling of Hetero- and Auto-acceptance) for the Construction of a Discursive Self. A Suggestion of Goals and Strategies for Psychological Counseling

Abstract

Purpose: Understanding how transgender people, who committed criminal offenses and are detained in prison, produce a narrative representation of self within different prison contexts. More specifically, this study has been based on two sub-aims: On a paradigmatic level, it has been aimed at critically investigating how the discursive positioning among the Self and the Other might promote the internalization of positive and/or negative attitudes toward the self. On a pragmatic level, it intends to offer some suggestions for goals and strategies of psychological counseling with these inmates inside such highly institutionalized contexts.Method and Materials: In total, 23 in-depth interviews were conducted with transgender women detained in either female or male prison contexts in Italy and Brazil. The lexical, semantic, and semiotic structure of the transcribed interviews has been investigated by adopting the quali-quantitative software Iramuteq for performing statistical text-mining analysis. Frequency, correspondences, and distribution of the most representative utterances across the corpus of data have been accessed and critically analyzed.Results: The findings showed that transgender inmates in Brazil made repeated use of the adverb “not,” while the verb “exist” became the most representative word for the Italian sample. In Brazil, indeed, transgender women assumed masculine-driven behavior due to a common imprisonment with cis-gender men. On the contrary, transgender women in Italy are detained in protected sections, where they are allowed to wear female clothing and continue hormonal treatments. Surprisingly, transgender inmates in Italy suffered more violence in a female sector when compared to exclusively male jails.Conclusions: Transgender people represent a challenge for prison administration because it is not clear in which penitentiary context they should be detained. They should receive special attentions in order to face their special needs, which are radically different when compared to other typologies of inmates. Within penitentiary contexts, psychological counseling with transgender women should pay a special attention to the several psycho-social dimensions of this existential condition. In particular, psychological counselors should consider its inner complex articulation within different social, cultural and normative contexts.

Views and Experiences of LGBTQ+ People in Prison Regarding Their Psychosocial Needs: A Systematic Review of the Qualitative Research Evidence

“…Following this step, a total of 21 full text papers were assessed for eligibility using the specified inclusion criteria. A hand search was also conducted of the reference lists of the identified papers leaving a total of 12 papers for the review [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32]. In line with PRISMA guidelines, this review has been registered with PROSPERO.…”

“…The majority of studies (n = 9) were undertaken in the USA [21,22,[24][25][26][27][30][31][32]. The remaining studies were from Australia (n = 2) [23,28] and Brazil/Italy (n = 1) [29]. Study participant numbers ranged from 7 to 315.…”

The Feminization of Transgender Women in Prisons for Men: How Prison as a Total Institution Shapes Gender

“… 1. Consistent with other research (Brown, 2014; Hochdorn et al, 2018), we orient to transgender as an umbrella term that includes individuals who are gender variant and that encompasses a broad range of related self-identity labels (for more details along these lines, see Sexton et al, 2010). Contemporary discourse on gender might substitute other terms—like “nonbinary,” “gender nonconforming,” or “genderqueer”—for transgender as language about gender identity and presentation continues to evolve rapidly.…”

Legal Battles: Transgender Inmates’ Rights

“…It is clear that transgender inmates have needs that are different from cisgender inmates (Hochdorn et al, 2018). These unique needs, which include safety from transphobic violence, rape, victimization, and healthcare concerns, pose many challenges for prisons globally (Gordon et al, 2017).…”

“…Commonly, transgender individuals are negatively represented in culture and society. This antagonistic representation worsens in institutionalized environments (Hochdorn et al, 2018).…”