“This injustice appears to be due to the state's confusion on how to handle housing a troubled trans minor,” writes Care2 petition author Kevin Mathews. “Doe admits she needs assistance in getting her life back in order. We need to provide this young woman with the help she needs: incarcerating her and pretending she's not there is not the solution.”
Since April 8, Doe -- who is in the custody of the state -- has been held at York Correctional Facility in Niantic, Connecticut, where she is in solitary confinement. She has been in the care of the Department of Children and Families (DCF) for most of her life and is a survivor of severe violence and abuse. She was placed in an adult women’s prison after DCF claimed she was violent and injured a staff member.
"I tell myself that this is just a nightmare, but it doesn't end,” Doe wrote in an op-ed published in the Hartford Courant. “I know that I need to work on my issues and I want to, but this is not the place.”
After the DCF removed Doe from her mother’s home at age 4, she suffered severe abuse, including repeated rape, beating, denial of food, sex trafficking, and homelessness. Most happened at locations where the DCF sent her. At one point, the DCF requested to transfer Doe to a men's prison, the Manson Youth Institute, although the transfer did not go through.
“I’m in my room 22 hours a day with a guard staring at me — even when I shower and go to the bathroom. It's humiliating,” Doe wrote.
“I want people to understand who I am, what my life has been like and how I ended up here. What I have survived would have destroyed most people. I'm not going to let it destroy me. I can't change what has happened, but I can build a future just like every other 16-year-old.”
