Last week marked the start of Women’s History Month. We honor and recognize that Black femmes, Indigenous femmes, Femmes of Color and LGBTQIA+ people are at the forefront of rejecting the harm of the criminal legal system while envisioning different ways to deal with harm in our society, and a world free of oppression. We center the voices of families who have been impacted by law enforcement violence, and know that we must defund jails, prisons, surveillance, and law enforcement, and get these occupying forces out of our communities.

Gender shapes the carceral system, and law enforcement harm is gendered. Women and LGBTQIA+ people are the most vulnerable populations inside and outside of incarceration. Those of us who are queer and trans often face punishment for our gender and sexual identities at the hands of the state. At the same time, law enforcement enacts rampant sexual violence and gendered violence, both inside carceral facilities and in our communities.

LA County Sheriff's Department deputies and other personnel – including LA County Department of Mental Health personnel working in detention facilities – systematically deny incarcerated women, femmes, Trans, GNC, Intersex, and Two-Spirit people vital mental and physical health care services, and subject them to brutal and humiliating abuses:

• denied access to medication, including for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression – sometimes for months
• over or under-medication, and distribution of medication without proper diagnosis or prescriptions
• placing people with mental health conditions in solitary confinement
  
• verbal abuse and sexual assault
• denied access to basic hygiene, and to tampons and pads
• shackling of pregnant people, and inadequate or non-existent reproductive healthcare
• no resources or communication opportunities for incarcerated women who are parents to arrange for childcare while they are being detained

Today, there are 596 Black women and 942 Latinx women in LA County jails – and these numbers are steadily increasing. Women, particularly Black women, suffer disproportionately from unmet mental health needs, and in carceral settings are even more vulnerable to medical neglect and abuse, which further compound their mental distress.

At the Century Regional Detention Facility (the women's jail often referred to as Lynwood), formerly incarcerated people and personnel have reported racially disproportionate medical abuse of Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color, including patterns of disproportionate and harmful over-diagnosis of mental health conditions. Many formerly incarcerated Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color have reported that they were over-medicated and over-diagnosed while in LA County detention facilities.

The neglect and abuse experienced by women, femmes, Trans, GNC, Intersex, and Two-Spirit people in the LA County jails are by no means mitigated by so-called “gender responsive incarceration.” We cannot reform inhumanity and gender-specific abuse out of the county jail system; gendered physical and structural violence is fundamental to mass incarceration. As long as the county continues to fund the Sheriff’s Department and the jails, and pays for the liability costs of their rampant abuses and misconduct, they perpetuate this violence.

Join us in calling for the release of Women, Femmes, Trans, GNC, Intersex, and Two-Spirit people from the LA County jails and detention centers, and for transformative investments into trauma-informed, gender-inclusive, community-based care for our mothers, siblings, neighbors, sisters, cousins, relatives, friends, and community members.