Protests to be held in Bristol and London over treatment of trans inmate Tara Hudson

Supporters of Tara Hudson will hold protests in Bristol and London this morning (October 30), as the campaign to see the transgender inmate transferred to a women’s prison gathers momentum.

Demonstrations will take place at 10am today (October 30) outside Bristol Crown Court, where Tara is due to appeal against her custodial sentence, and at 12 noon in London, outside the Ministry of Justice, the Bath Chronicle reports.

Hudson – who has lived her entire adult life as a woman and has undergone six years of gender reassignment surgery – was sentenced to 12 weeks in a Category B Bristol men’s prison last Friday (October 23) after pleading guilty to assault at a bar last Christmas.

There have been growing fears for the 26-year-old’s safety following the news yesterday that reports of her imminent transferal to a women’s unit were untrue, and that despite assurances by the Ministry of Justice, she is being held unsegregated within the male prison population.

Organisers of the support rally wrote on Facebook that the gathering aims to “make sure that [Tara] and the authorities know she is not alone, and that over 100K people see her case as it is – a backwards, archaic instance of injustice.” The statistic refers to over 125,000 people who signed a Change.org petition to transfer Hudson to a women’s prison.

Meanwhile, organisers for the London demo issued a statement calling for Tara’s immediate transferral and for a review of how transgender inmates are treated by the prison service.

“We are protesting because we are angry and disgusted by the actions of the prison service, which we believe to be transphobic, harmful and a breach of Tara’s human rights”, they said.

“All trans people should be treated humanely and equitably by the prison service and courts. Instead, she has been subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment which we firmly believe amounts to torture, for the simple crime of not having the right paperwork.

“Tara’s personal safety should be the most important consideration here, and we are concerned by reports today revealing that, in breach of the Ministry of Justice’s own guidelines, she has not been fully segregated and is being held alongside the male population, where she is constantly subject to sexual harassment and the very real risk of assault and worse.”

London-based supporters will also be able to join a protest outside the Ministry of Justice building in Westminster at lunchtime today (October 30).

The Guardian reported yesterday that Hudson is already facing sexual harassment by fellow inmates in prison. Following a two-minute phone conversation with Hudson – her first call home since she was jailed – her mum, Jackie Brooklyn, told the paper, “Inmates are screaming from their cells: ‘Tara, Tara, Tara, show us your tits.’”

Bath Conservative MP Ben Howlett – who raised the issue with Parliament’s Women and Equalities Select Committee yesterday (Octover 28) – had previously said of the case: “We’re doing all we can in order to get Tara out of that all-male environment and into an all-female environment.

“We have a serious problem when it comes to the prison service – Tara isn’t on her own and for those people who are self-identifying the law is not in place to protect those people.”

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