Under Pressure, King County To Change Transgender Jail Policies

SEATTLE, WA — King County officials are pledging to change policies governing transgender people in jail, responding to pressure from advocacy groups who have long complained about unsafe conditions, particularly at the King County Correctional Facility in downtown Seattle.

For years, transgender and gender non-binary people have reported being booked under an incorrect name and gender, being harassed and threatened by other inmates, being denied necessary medication and, in some cases, being ignored by jail staff when attempting to raise concerns for their safety.

In June, Patch reported allegations made by Joan Fochs, a transgender woman who was arrested at a protest and spent two days inside the jail, where she said she was improperly housed with male inmates, repeatedly sexually harassed, denied her medication and largely ignored by jail staff when she complained.

In line with King County policy, Fochs was held in an isolation unit, considered by some to be akin to solitary confinement. Under current policy, transgender people cannot leave isolation until they present their case to the jail’s Transgender Review Committee, which has to meet within 72 hours — excluding weekends and holidays.

But at a July 31 meeting with representatives from three local groups, King County Jail officials pledged to begin booking people under their current legal name and gender, to stop automatically placing transgender and non-binary people in isolation, and to allow transgender and non-binary people to access medication without having to state their birth name, by instead confirming their birth date and initials.

Those changes only address the most "basic, minimum" protections that advocates are asking for, said Danny Waxwing, a staff attorney at Disability Rights Washington who attended the meeting along with representatives from the advocacy groups Legal Voice and QLaw. Longer-term discussions between jail officials and people who have formerly been incarcerated could produce further changes, he said.

"We have a lot of stakeholders ... who are willing to sit down with them and help them do better," Waxwing said.

"Treat them with respect and dignity"

The problems being raised now are nothing new, advocates say, citing years of complaints by clients as well as a 2018 report from the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, which described inaccessible medication and segregated housing for transgender people in the downtown jail.

The renewed pressure began July 9, when a group of 15 organizations including the King County Public Defense and the ACLU of Washington wrote a joint letter to the King County Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention, demanding a host of immediate actions and longer-term policy changes by DAJD.

Each year, the groups wrote, “dozens of transgender and nonbinary individuals” experience unsafe treatment in King County detention facilities. The letter detailed the specific experiences of a half dozen people, including Fochs, although she was not referenced by name.

Related coverage: She Protested In Seattle, Then Spent 2 'Terrifying' Days In Jail

Among the people whose cases were cited anonymously in the letter is Oliver Webb, a transgender man who told Patch he is still reeling from the 26 hours he spent in King County custody in May.

Webb, 37, was arrested May 11 following a run-in with the Bellevue Police Department. He was accused of harassing and verbally assaulting an officer — charges he disputes — and brought to the jail, where, he says, a Bellevue police officer outed him as transgender against his wishes to a corrections officer in the holding area. (Reached for comment, a Bellevue police spokesperson said the department "will be looking into the situation.”)

Despite having legally changed his name in 2017, Webb was then asked to state his birth name, which he no longer uses — a practice many transgender people and advocates consider deeply harmful. When Webb refused, a jail staff member told him he could not be booked under an “alias” and booked him under his birth name after finding it in an internal database, Webb said. (King County policies state simply that transgender people should be booked “under the legal name.”)

“I never got a chance to tell anyone or make that decision for myself,” Webb said.

Being outed as transgender exposed Webb to harassment from other inmates in the male isolation unit where he was housed, who berated him with transphobic slurs and threatened to rape and murder him, he said.

In an official complaint that Webb wrote from his cell, he described being denied his mental health medication because he declined to state his birth name. He said the call button in his cell appeared to have been turned off after he tried repeatedly to summon jail staff, and that on two occasions, staff asked him to take a pregnancy test, which he refused.

In response to a request for comment, Noah Haglund, a spokesperson for DAJD, said the jail's 40-year-old management system, which is slated to be replaced by the end of next year, “only uses the name associated with an individual’s past history, regardless of more recent changes.”

Haglund said that the process of preparing a person’s medication is tied to their booking name, and that jail staff lack the ability to turn off call buttons, although the sound can be muted.

In the complaint form, Webb was asked what "action or resolution" he sought.

“My meds,” he wrote, “and education on transgender inmates and how to treat them with respect and dignity and house them safely."

"This is going to continue"

Less than one day after Waxwing sent the letter of demands, the groups received a response from Pascal Herzer, a Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney with the King County prosecutor's office, who said the county would assemble a workgroup to review the demands and respond within 30 days. The workgroup included representatives from jail operations and Jail Health Services, according to Haglund.

At the July 31 meeting, Herzer, King County Jail Commander Corinna Hyatt and Head of Classifications Gregg Curtis committed to changing the booking process and medication policies, and to shortening the Transgender Review Committee’s 72-hour window down to 24 hours, according to notes from the meeting.

Waxwing said Monday that jail officials were preparing a formal response that would include a schedule for implementing the changes. Advocates are also asking for a “longer-term engagement,” allowing them to push for more policy change in the future, he said.

Webb, meanwhile, said Tuesday that he found the commitments encouraging, but suggested the lack of a timeline was cause for concern, as more transgender arrestees risk being housed in unsafe conditions.

“I absolutely believe that this is going to continue, especially with the amount of protesters being arrested on a daily basis,” he said.

Moreover, he said, future policy changes couldn’t undo the consequences of his own arrest, which has created a permanent record of his "deadname."

“There are now public records that have the wrong name and gender on them,” Webb said. “My legal name was taken away from me on May 11.”