The West Coast Prison Justice Society (WCPJS) has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) on behalf of Laura Bulyk, a transgender inmate who alleges bullying, intimidation and sexual abuse from male prisoners and staffers and the facility where she is serving her sentence.
The complaint seeks to change the policy for all transgender prisoners asking that the commission require staff to identity prisoners using the appropriate pronouns, and end discriminatory practices like limiting access to gender affirmation surgery and placing inmates solely based on biological sex.
States WCPJS, “CSC’s policies require prisoners to be placed in male or female prisons according to their genitals, rather than by gender identity. Both BC and Ontario corrections place prisoners according to gender, if that is the person’s preference. CSC’s policy means that vulnerable trans women are forced to live in men’s prisons where they are at constant risk of sexual assault.”
In her affidavit, Bilyk says she came out as transgender in about 2002 and has lived as a woman since beginning hormone treatment in 2008.
“I have experienced bullying and intimidation from male prisoners who demand sex from me,” says Bilyk, a 54-year-old transgender woman who began a life sentence for second-degree murder in 1987, as Larry Donald King.
