I saw transgender prisoners, already struggling to come to terms with their own complexities, left to the mercy of an exaggerated macho culture, trying to cope with being objects both of derision and desire. Gay men ashamed of being gay, straight men feeling forced to pretend to be anti-gay. That’s when I learned how prevalent the suppression of sexual identity was in prison.
For five years I was a listener, trained by the Samaritans to offer a non-judgmental ear to fellow prisoners in distress. The commission reveals that little has changed since my own time in prison from 1984 to 2004.Īs the years passed I became acutely aware of how painful, destructive and damaging the privation of opportunities for healthy sexual expression can be for prisoners. I was very popular, and I loved it.” Others said they had sexual partners who were outwardly “macho” and “anti-gay” and were sustaining relationships with wives or girlfriends through letters and visits – these were “jail gays”, they said, “gay on the inside”, but apparently straight on the outside.
A prisoner’s drawing depicting his experience in jail.Īnother had no complaints, telling the researcher that, “prison was a fabulous sexual experience.”
