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Fighting to dismantle the foster-system-to-prison pipeline. Fighting for her rights. Fighting to be respected.
The 27-year-old transgender woman was transferred against her will last month to a men's facility after impregnating two prisoners at the Edna Mahan Corrections Facility, she and her lawyer Derek Demeri said.
And now that Minor is in the Garden State Youth Correctional Facility, she is going to have to fight some more. This time, for her life.
Minor began mutilating her genitals and tried killing herself in a van on the way to the men's facility last month, her attorney confirmed.
"They said that I am here for safety," she wrote on her website. "No, please understand that I am here for punishment, just the sad part is this punishment may kill me."
Since the June 24 transfer, Minor has been spit on by other inmates, called demoralizing names and has been consistently misgendered, her attorney said. He and Minor both fear the worst has yet to come.
"Demi lives in a constant state of fear that she may be sexually assaulted," Demeri told Daily Voice.
Transgender people are 10 times as likely to be sexually assaulted by fellow inmates and five times as likely to be sexually assaulted by staff, TransgenderEquality.org says citing a survey.
Daniel Sperrazza, the NJDOC public informations director, did not immediately respond to Daily Voice's email placed Thursday, July 28. However, he told NJ.com that "decisions related to an incarcerated person’s housing are made within the parameters of the settlement agreement, which requires consideration of gender identity and the health and safety of the individual."
Minor landed in jail at 16 years old after she killed her foster dad in the same house where she was sexually assaulted by her foster sibling, she writes on her blog. Minor came out as transgender sometime around 2019 or 2020, her attorney said. It was the reason she was brought from a men's prison to Edna Mahan to begin with.
Last April, it came to light that she had impregnated two inmates at Edna Mahan. After serving 60 days in restrictive housing, she was transferred to a men's prison.
Minor filed an appeal of decisions to the New Jersey Department of Corrections' housing committee to allow her to return to Edna Mahan, where her partner is seven months pregnant with their child. The other inmate's pregnancy was terminated.
A hearing for the appeal was held on Wednesday, July 27, and Demeri is hoping to have an answer within a week. Even if it's denied, Minor and Demeri plan to keep fighting.
"It’s been a long and difficult fight for Demi, both since it came out that there were pregnancies, and even before that," the attorney said. "She was struggling to advocate for her rights in the prisons.
"A lot of people question, 'Why should we care about prisoners' rights? Why should prisoners have rights, and why should prisoners have transgender rights?'
"The sign of a healthy society is when we’re able to give everyone rights they deserve regardless of the circumstances. And that’s what I’m fighting for and what Demi is fighting for."
Minor, a Gloucester County native, feels flaws in New Jersey's foster care system are what landed her in this position to begin with. She launched a website, Justice4Demi, where she tells her story in part of her effort to inflict a change within.
"Only 16 years old and succumbing to the social pressure to be a boy, Demi’s actual charges for manslaughter stemmed from an act of misdirected hostility in which she killed her former foster father whom she wrongly blamed at the time for the sexual abuse she suffered while under his care," she writes.
She goes on to explain how she was placed in the foster care system when she was eight, after it came to light that her father beat her so bad it became impossible to sit down in school. Then, in one of the foster homes she was placed in, she was sexually abused by a foster sibling.
"When she reported the abuse, she was told that there was no place in the foster system for a black boy," Minor writes.
Minor became homeless but ultimately ended up back in that same home, where she stabbed her foster dad dead during an altercation.
Minor said she took the plea that "waived her rights as a juvenile" due to pressure from an overworked public defender managing her case. She was imprisoned to 30 years with a 25 year minimum in an adult prison, her website says.
Several years ago, Minor launched her website and has been using it as a platform where she advocates for change, and details some aspects of life in prison.
She titles one blog, Correcting Corrections: Prison Reform Begins With Retraining All Officers. Another, Being a Transgender Woman in a Woman’s Prison. On June 24, Minor penned a blog titled Being Forced to Live in a Male Prison.
"I attempt to ask Officers if I could be strip searched by a female officer which I felt comfortable doing …The Lieutenant refused and mocked me as I asked for this, he said if I did not follow his commands to allow two male officers to strip search me he was going to cut all my clothes off of me and place me in a dry cell," she writes. "I cried and complied with his commands as the male officer said things to me that I perceived as wrong."
State Prison guards misgendered Minor "well over 30 times," something that hadn't happened to her before, she said.
"While on constant watch, I was off camera where a guard told me 'I don’t give a f*ck what you do ….there is no camera here.. everyone here is man including you,'" she writes.
The repeated misgendering and apparent lack of respect for Minor's gender identity is what her attorney says led to her suicide attempt and genital mutilation.
"Most research will show [genital mutilation] is a predictable result of when gender dysphoria is aggravated, the way the NJDOC has been aggravating it for Minor," Demeri said.
Following the two pregnancies, Minor and the two other inmates were charged with engaging in sexual activity, which is against regulations in New Jersey prisons, Demeri said. But Minor was the only one ordered to serve 60 days in restrictive housing, or solitary confinement.
The day she got out, she was sent to the GSYCF, which houses men ages 18 to 30. The reason for that varies widely, Demeri said.
"The Attorney General's office said they moved her because she wanted to be there, since she no longer identified as a woman," the attorney said. "That’s not true and it's never been the case.
"Demi understands she’s in prison, and there’s consequences for engaging in sexual activity. But she wants her gender identity respected and to live authentically, and serve out her sentence without being so violated in such a deep and personal way every day."
Edna Mahan is New Jersey's only women's prison and became the center of an investigation over reports of repeated sexual abuse among inmates at the hands of guards.
"We're fighting to get her back there," Demeri said. "We're fighting to get her housed according to her gender identity. Of course there are many problems with Edna Mahan, but all those pale in comparison to her being housed with cis-gender men."
"I pray that someone hears my voice," Minor writes on her website.
"I pray that punishment ends and that something takes place to stop this abuse, this was a horrible decision, I would have rather stayed in EMCF’s lock up than to have to endure this, I am not safe and would rather be a close custody inmate at EMCF than to stay here.
"They want to protect my safety….they said that I was removed for my safety….At what point does anyone truly consider my safety?"
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