Gender Conference NYC Professional Symposium 2019

Despite often being removed from public sight and affect, prisons, jails, and practices of policing remain as some of the most critically destructive forces in the lives of trans, gender non-conforming and queer people. More than 57% of trans people report fear of engaging with law enforcement; more than 16% of trans people, 21% of trans women, and 47% of Black trans women have been incarcerated at some point in their lives; and while incarcerated, trans women consistently experience ongoing gender-based violence. Although the work of organizations to intervene and protect these communities in their adult age is critical, earlier interventions in a person’s youth and their social environments as well as sustained advocacy for prison abolition can be powerful tools to help mitigate the impact of these violent systems on a personal level. In this workshop, participants will explore the prison industrial complex and its relationship to the school-to-prison pipeline, hetero- and cisnormative familial structures and their resulting impacts on trans, gender non-conforming, and Black and brown communities spanning from youth to adulthood.