Criminal Justice | Gender-Affirming Facilities | Maine

When you first arrive at a new facility, an officer should conduct an “intake” with you. This is the best time for you to share if you are transgender or intersex. You can also tell the intake officer if you have a history of being “perceived”, or others seeing you as, transgender or intersex, or if you have recently had gender-affirming procedures or any similar care. If you have already had gender-affirming surgery, then you should tell your intake officer immediately. Maine’s policy is that people who have had gender-affirming procedures should be housed in accordance with their gender identity.

Once you tell the intake officer, they are responsible for contacting a person with the role of Chief Administrative Officer or someone who works for them. That intake officer should tell the Chief Administrative Officer if you are transgender or intersex. It is also possible that a defense attorney or prosecutor, a guardian, a department or jail staff member, or another officer of the court has already said that you are transgender or intersex. If someone else has told the facility, then the intake officer is still responsible for telling the Chief Administrative Officer even if you haven’t. 

If the Chief Administrative Officer receives information from someone about your case before your first intake, then they might make a decision about your initial strip search and housing placement before you arrive.

If your initial strip search has not been done before your intake, then the Chief Administrative Officer should consider different factors, including your personal preference, about the gender of the officer who will conduct it. That Chief Administrative Officer will document the reasons for choosing a particular officer in your Corrections Information System (CORIS).  

The Chief Administrative Officer or someone who works for them will also decide where the best place for your immediate housing is. They will make that decision based on different factors including your risk to safety. They should document all the reasons for their decision in your CORIS file. Your housing assignment might change after they conduct a more in-depth review. In the meantime, your strip searches will be conducted by staff members of the same gender as other people who are in the unit you are assigned to. If the Chief Administrative Officer wants to assign a different person to search you, they will put this in your CORIS file. 

You should be given an opportunity to use the bathroom and shower privately until a full assessment takes place. 

If you are already on hormonal medications when you enter the facility, you should be able to continue using them. You can continue to use them at least until you have an appointment with the facility’s physician, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner. Your facility has to follow a policy about this called the Adult Facility Policy 18.7: Pharmaceuticals.

The Chief Administrative Officer should notify the facility’s Health Services Administrator as soon as they can about your case. The Health Services Administrator should prioritize your case so that they can make a determination about whether or not you have received a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria”, have received hormonal treatment, have received transgender or intersex-related medical procedures, or any other relevant medical assistance. 

In order to do that, the facility will probably ask you for a release of information to get your healthcare documents. If you want to say yes, they will be able to look through those documents and hopefully more quickly decide how to move forward with your case. The Chief Administrative Officer will then decide if you need an evaluation for “gender dysphoria” or an expedited medical health assessment. They may also look for information from Adult Community Corrections to request information about how long they have known you were transgender or intersex. 

If there is a safety issue relating to being transgender or intersex, you should let officers at the facility know right away. This could include risks to safety of yourself or of another person. It also includes anything that would require a change from your immediate housing placement that was made by the Chief Administrative Officer when you entered. The facility staff should follow department policy that sets out what to do in a situation like this. That policy is called the Adult Facility Policy 15.1: Administrative Segregation Status. 

Maine uses a definition for “Gender Dysphoria” from a book, written by doctors at the American Psychiatric Association, called the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders [Fifth Edition], or the “DSM-5”. The definition is:

A difference between a person’s experienced and expressed gender and their assigned gender that has taken place for at least six months. It must include two of the following: 

1. A marked incongruence between one’s experiences/expressed gender and primary and/or secondary sex characteristics (or in young adolescents, the anticipated secondary sex characteristics);
2. A strong desire to be rid of one’s primary and/or secondary sex characteristics because of a marked incongruence with one’s experienced/expressed gender (or in young adolescents, a desire to prevent the development of the anticipated secondary sex characteristics);
3. A strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender;
4. A strong desire to be of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender);
5. A strong desire to be treated as the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender);
6. A strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender (or some alternative gender different from one’s assigned gender). 

Within 30 days of your report, the Chief Administrative Officer should put together a team to handle your case. People on that team should include your Unit Manager at your facility, the Health Services Administrator, the Department’s Medical Director, the Department’s Mental Health Director, a member of the facility’s security staff, a member of the facility’s classification staff, and the facility Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) monitor. There may be one or more other people on the team as well if the Chief Administrative Office thinks they should be. For example, they may contact the Chief Administrative Officer or Department’s Director of Classification at the facility where you could be transferred to. 

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is a federal law passed in 2003. Under PREA, rather than automatically assigning people to a facility, transgender and intersex people are assessed for potential safety threats and housed “on a case-by-case basis” according to gender identity. Correctional staff have to consider housing and program assignments at least twice a year to review any threats to safety experienced by transgender and intersex people living in prison. 

According to the law, they also have to take into account your own view of your safety. They are not allowed to separate you for housing or other program placements based solely on your LGBT+ status. 

PREA also protects “involuntary segregation”, or the removal of a person to a different housing assignment against their will. You cannot continue to be kept in a different part of the prison against your will unless prison officials have determined that there is no other way to keep you safe. They have to make that determination within the first 24 hours if they do place you in separate housing against your will. People cannot be segregated against their will for more than thirty days, and they must be given access to all of the same work, educational, and programming opportunities as any other person. 

The team will make the following recommendations about your case: 

1. Whether male or female housing is more appropriate for you
2. Whether male or female staff will conduct searches
3. What property items you will be allowed to have 
4. What your shower and toilet arrangements should be
5. Any safety or security precautions required
6. Any other relevant decisions.

The team should make these recommendations based on information available about your case. That includes things like whether or not you have a diagnosis for “gender dysphoria”, as well as any other relevant medical tests. If you haven’t had an assessment for “gender dysphoria” yet, then the team will decide if you need one. They will also decide if they want to request any other medical assessments.

In making decisions about your recommendations, the team will consider things like: 

1. Your gender assigned at birth
2. Your views with respect to your own identity and safety, and whether or not those views have been “consistent” 
3. Whether you have taken any steps toward gender-affirming surgery
4. Any of your “relevant characteristics”, like physical stature, tendency toward violence or predatory behavior, and vulnerability to violence or predatory behavior
5. Any relevant characteristics of other people with whom you might be housed or come into contact
6. Your correctional history (for example, if there are any previous management situations that impacted the safety of other persons or the security of the facility)
7. Whether you have any mental health concerns
8. Whether there are any perceived risks to the continuing safety and health of the prisoner or others. 

The Chief Administrative Officer or someone who works for them should make the final decision about the full team’s recommendations for your current facility. They will make decisions about your health care plan and transfer to another facility in conjunction with other people. 

That final decision on the recommendations should be used to create a case plan for you. That plan might include an evaluation for “gender dysphoria”, for example. If it does, then you should be brought for an assessment for “gender dysphoria” or any other relevant medical assessment. Within 15 days of that assessment, the Chief Administrative Officer should share the results with your team and finalize its recommendations.

Even after that, the Chief Administrative Officer can also bring your team together periodically or any time appropriate to make further recommendations about your care. Any time that your team meets, as well as all of your recommendations, should be documented in your CORIS file.

Your unit management team is responsible for reassessing your case and housing situation at least every six months, or more frequently if it is necessary. If you experience threats or a change in safety, you should let an officer at your facility know. Your care team should give specific attention to any threats to safety you report.

It can be more difficult to request transfer if you’ve been in a facility for a while, but there is a procedure to do so. The main differences with asking for a transfer after you have already been in a facility are that, until a full review has been completed, you will not be placed in a different housing unit with people of a different gender than where you have been living. You will also not be given the opportunity to shower or use the bathroom privately.

The first step is to let staff at your facility know that you are transgender or intersex. From there, they should contact the Chief Administrative Officer of the facility. The Chief Administrative Officer should reach out to the Health Services Administrator as soon as possible after they receive your report. The process from there looks similar to what would have happened if you had requested the transfer from the beginning.

The Health Services Administrator should prioritize your case so that they can make a determination about whether or not you have received a diagnosis of “gender dysphoria”, have received hormonal treatment, have received transgender or intersex-related medical procedures, or any other relevant medical assistance. 

In order to do that, the facility will need you to sign a “Release of Information” to get your healthcare documents. If you want to say yes, they will be able to look through those documents and hopefully more quickly decide how to move forward with your case. The Chief Administrative Officer will then decide if you need an evaluation for “gender dysphoria” or an expedited medical health assessment. 

The Chief Administrative Officer will also ask staff at your facility and staff from other departments about whether they knew you were transgender or intersex or had perceived you to be before you made your own disclosure. They may reach out to the adult community corrections as well. 

There are options if you don’t think that the Chief Administrative Officer or the team made the right decision about your custody level or if they did not approve a transfer. You can “appeal” this decision through the Classification Appeal Process. You can ask an officer for a copy of the Prisoner Appeal of Classification Decision form. Here is a link to Procedure J of the Classification System, which also describes the process. 

To make an appeal, you have to submit the Prisoner Appeal of Classification Decision form within five business days of receiving your decision—this does not count weekend days or holidays. You should submit this form to the Department’s Director of Classification for custody level or facility transfer decisions, specifically. You should submit this form to the facility Chief Administrative Officer for all other classification issues. 

Appealing the decision itself will not stop it from taking place, so you will have to remain housed in your current facility during the appeals process. Whoever you submitted your appeal to, such as the Department’s Director of Classification or the facility Chief Administrative Officer, should give you a decision about your appeal within 30 days. They can choose to approve the decision, reverse the decision, modify the decision, or “remand” the decision to the Unit Management Team (UMT) for further consideration. “Remanding” the decision means that the UMT will take over and decide what to do. 

It is important to remember that the Department’s Director of Classification is the final authority for appeals about custody level or facility transfer. For all other appeals, the facility Chief Administrative Officer is the final authority.

If you want to appeal a decision made about your case that has to do with something besides custody and transfer, you can use the regular “grievance process” at your facility by filing a grievance. 

All appeals will be put into your CORIS file. You can also find more information about Maine State Prison policies in this Handbook.