Transwomen, the Prison-Industrial Complex, and Human Rights: Neoliberalism and Trans-Resistance

This article introduces complexity into understandings around the relationships between human rights, being transgender, and interacting with the prison-industrial complex. It looks at struggles and interventions against neoliberal mainstream agendas that do not address the underlying causes of state violence against transpeople, especially trans women of color. This essay employs in-depth research and analysis primarily employing the lens and tools of intersectional subalternity, personal experience, and extensive community activism around these complex issues to show that human rights struggles that do not challenge neoliberal politics generally fail to meet the needs of trans people facing massive structural violence with the prison industrial complex. Despite this failure, there are also on the ground methods that are proving effective in addressing these issues on a small-scale and attempting to extend these shifts into the macro realm