In the wake of the arrest and detention of Sienna Fox, the state of Western Australia is now seeing some of the most intense scrutiny on its treatment of transgender prisoners ever. This is a major news story in basically every mainstream news outlet active on this coast.
Today, I will be writing an open letter to the Minister for Corrective Services of Western Australia, in the name of our sex worker advocacy group, calling on him to immediately cease the practice of detaining trans women in male prisons.
We need every ally we can get on this – and I mean everyone. If you represent a trans organisation, in Australia or internationally, we would love your signature on this. If you represent a queer organisation, we would love your signature on this. If you represent a sex worker organisation, if you represent if you represent an organisation dealing with any kind of marginalised people (and so, transgender people dealing with the criminal justice system), we would love your signature on this. If you are an individual activist of any prominence on any of these things, we would love your signature on this. If any of this describes any of your friends, we would love their signature too.
There will be a change.org petition to give everyone an opportunity to express support individually, as all of Sienna’s respective communities have been absolutely amazing so far, but we have never had an opportunity like this to take on the issue of trans women in the criminal justice system on this coast once and for all with this much media attention on the subject.
I am going to write up the open letter today, and anyone who signs will have a chance to see it before it goes out. I’m going to hit the phones tomorrow and call basically everyone I can think of, but it would make my life heaps easier if people could get in touch with us first!
Please, please reblog this far and wide. This is an opportunity to save not only Sienna from a unique kind of hell, but other trans women in detention in this state and those who wind up there in future. We are preparing for one hell of a fight, and we need friends, lots of them – and not just those here but those far beyond Australian shores.
If you are interesting in signing on, or know people who could, please send me an email at evolvingmatterblog@gmail.com or message me through Tumblr.
Together, we can do this.
Please share this. This is something we can all do to help prevent a monumental injustice.
And now for the fightback…
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