Opinion | Why we didn't celebrate Gay Pride Month in women's prison

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Keri Blakinger: Queerness, like a lot of things behind bars, carries extra risks. - NBCNewsTHINK

Lately I’ve found myself questioning whether I look too queer in certain settings. And when I think about the last time I had to ask myself that question, it’s a quick answer: It’s when I was in prison.reporter for The Marshall Project and author of "Corrections in Ink"

That realization was a surprise for me, too. It was just a few weeks after I’d been arrested in December 2010 with a Tupperware container full of heroin. I was awaiting sentencing in an upstate New York county jail when the facility’s one openly lesbian guard pulled me aside to warn me: The higher-ups thought I was “too close” to my cellmate, who had become a good friend.the guard advised. Otherwise, we might get separated or transferred to another jail.

On some units, the staff made it a mission to zealously police any such activity, and we had to emphasize our supposed straightness lest we become targets. In theory those sorts of regulations were not inherently homophobic, and would just make it harder for prisoners to get away with sexually exploiting each other. But even the name both prisoners and staff used for the kind of disciplinary ticket you’d get reeked of stigma: Sexual transgressions were known as DGs — short for degenerate acts.To some extent, I think we bought into that sort of institutional bigotry.

 

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