Guest Blog

This is a guest blog post by Reiyn Keohane, ACLU of Florida client. Reiyn is a transgender woman currently being denied hormone therapy and other treatment for gender dysphoria in a Florida prison. We have filed a lawsuit on her behalf to restore her medically necessary treatment. She wrote the below letter to let the world know about her experiences as a transgender woman being denied care in a Florida prison. In the years I have been incarcerated, I have been made to endure more cruelty by the State of Florida than I ever imagined the government could commit. I am a transgender woman—but to the classification officers there is no such thing. If they say you’re male, you go to men’s prison, where you will be forced to “act like a man” under threat of being locked up in solitary, beaten, and humiliated. I have suffered through it all. I have been forced to strip with men, and been slapped and hit for telling the officers in charge of the search that the rules say I must be searched separately. I have been handcuffed, thrown to the ground, and held down so officers could shave my head. I have been called a punk, a sissy, and a faggot; I have been beaten while handcuffed for asking to see mental health professionals.

Catherine Merchant, a transgender woman from the Panhandle, was denied a name change by a state judge. Three years later, with the help of the ACLU of Florida, she won in her fight to have her legal name reflect who she is. This is her story in her own words: A name is a very special thing, just a set of words that refer to you more personally than anything else, but I imagine most people go through their whole lives without ever giving their name any real thought. For most, it just isn't something to be concerned about one way or the other.Your name is used hundreds of times, every single day, everywhere you go. It is one of those things you just absorb into your being, one more fact about you. But what if you found out your name isn't really yours? What if every time someone used your name, it simply felt wrong, like people were consistently confusing you with someone else? Or even worse, like they were denying you your true identity?