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A black transgender woman is suing the Georgia Department of Prison, accusing officials of failing to protect her from alleged sexual assault and of not providing “adequate health care” to her while she was behind the crimes. bars. Ashley Diamond, inmate at Savannah Coastal State Prison, settled a similar lawsuit against the department in 2016.
The Center for Constitutional Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed the lawsuit on behalf of Diamond on Monday. Diamond, who was released from jail in 2015, was incarcerated after a parole violation last year.
According to the lawsuit, Diamond was held in men’s prisons where she was allegedly assaulted more than 14 times in the past year by inmates and prison staff. The lawsuit claims that she was also a victim of sexual harassment and was denied necessary treatment for her gender dysphoria, which led her to attempt suicide.
“Being a woman in a men’s prison is a nightmare,” Diamond said in a statement. “I have been stripped of my identity. I never feel safe. Never. I am a victim of sexual harassment on a daily basis, and fear of sexual assault is always an imminent thought. I am bringing this lawsuit to bring justice. changes in the name of a community which deserves the inherent dignity of simply existing. “
Joan Heath, spokesperson for the Georgia Department of Prison Affairs, said the department is not commenting on pending litigation.
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In 2015, Diamond filed a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections freeze-frame policies for transgender inmates, which only allowed inmates to continue the treatment they had received prior to their sentence and prevented them to start new treatments. Diamond, who was diagnosed with gender dysphoria as a teenager, said she was not allowed to continue her hormone treatment.
The Justice Department said the practice was unconstitutional and said the Eighth Amendment required prison officials to deal with inmates’ gender dysphoria. Diamond settled his lawsuit against the state for an undisclosed amount in 2016, and the Georgia Department of Corrections ended its policy, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
“To sue to hold Georgia accountable for its trans abuses is the worst kind of déjà vu because Ashley Diamond has taken this route once before,” Chinyere Ezie, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, said Monday. , in a press release. “Ashley won so many rights for trans prisoners thanks to her trial in 2015, it is shocking and horrifying to see that five years later, trans people in prison are still sexually assaulted, denied necessary medical care and are left to die. We hope that with this trial the cruel and unusual treatment ends today. ”
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