OPINION: The new policy announced by Minister of Public Security Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel is political posturing <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yesterday, Quebec\u2019s Public Security minister Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel announced that the province would force trans people to be detained in provincial prisons according to their assigned sex at birth unless they have had bottom surgery. Previously, the provincial government gave trans inmates the option of requesting to be housed at facilities which align with their correct gender. They could also, in the past, be isolated from the general population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With this new policy, Quebec is breaking with federal standards. In Canadian federal prisons, trans people are supposedly allowed the chance to be incarcerated in alignment with their gender\u2014although the vast majority <\/a>are still housed in institutions according to their sex at birth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n While the announcement was seemingly sudden, the policy comes on the heels of a controversial legal case, wherein a trans Quebecker named Levana Ballouz was convicted of killing her partner and children<\/a>. Ballouz transitioned in custody, and while she was held in a women\u2019s prison during her trial, she was eventually moved to a men\u2019s federal prison after her conviction. (Canadians serving sentences longer than two years do so in federal prisons.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having lived in Quebec for more than a decade, I\u2019ve become used to the way stories that are big here fail to gain traction in other parts of the country. I watched the Ballouz story unfold, bringing about a predictable share of transphobic headlines and TERFy hand-wringing about sex-segregated spaces in francophone media\u2014but felt relieved when it didn\u2019t quite cause a panic outside of the province. I thought, briefly, that this case might actually be treated as what it was\u2014a tragic and horrific, but highly specific circumstance. A rare, exceptional situation, rather than a convenient cover for the erosion of trans rights. It seems I was wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the new policy wasn\u2019t explicitly tied to the Ballouz case, in an interview with the Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/em><\/a>, Bonnardel said in French, \u201cIt\u2019s not true that I\u2019m going to let a killer who has killed a woman, who has killed children, to go into a women\u2019s prison with male physical attributes. I won\u2019t accept that.\u201d (Never mind that anyone held in a provincial prison while awaiting a murder charge should be granted the presumption of innocence according to our carceral system.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n The minister claimed yesterday that the new policy was a matter of safety, but it\u2019s hard to see the move as anything other than political posturing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are currently six trans people incarcerated in Quebec provincial prisons. Six. That\u2019s 0.1 percent of the incarcerated population. There\u2019s no data indicating how many of those people have or haven\u2019t had bottom surgery, mind you. Regardless, it\u2019s clear that we\u2019re talking about a tiny fraction of people. This is a tactic from the anti-trans playbook that we\u2019ve seen used over and over: taking an issue that affects a minuscule segment of the population, blowing it out of proportion and using it to roll back human rights protections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The idea that less than one percent of the provincial prison population poses such a pressing threat that immediate government intervention is required is farcical. What\u2019s not so hard to imagine is the outsize pain this policy will cause to any trans Quebeckers who do end up incarcerated in a provincial prison. The abuse, intimidation,<\/a> violence and discrimination trans inmates\u2014especially those who are trans women\u2014face in Canada has been well documented<\/a>, including by Xtra<\/em><\/a>. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Bonnardel did specify that some accommodations would be made. He also said that prison staff would receive training and a guide for best practices on how to treat LGBTQ2S+ detainees. Given what we know about the treatment of queer and trans people in the carceral system, though, it\u2019s impossible to imagine DEI-workshopping our way out of the mistreatment that is sure to arise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another laughable idea? That this new policy is actually born out of any concern for women\u2014or anyone else\u2014incarcerated in Quebec prisons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf Quebec politicians truly cared about incarcerated women, they would address the factors that are causing them to suffer.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n The truth is that Quebec prisons actually are<\/em> dangerous for the people housed there. A study released last year showed that there has been an 87 percent increase in deaths<\/a> in provincial prisons over a period of 13 years. Between 2009 and 2022, 256 detainees lost their lives behind bars. There were numerous factors that led to this increase, including dilapidated facilities, excessive transfers and excessive use of isolation, overcrowding and an inability for inmates to keep contact with loved ones. In conjunction, of course, with serious difficulties accessing care for mental and physical health.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Add to this other threats inmates face across the country from abuse to retraumatization<\/a> to unsanitary conditions to toxic drug supply<\/a>. Advocates have long begged for incarcerated Canadians to receive a shred of dignity, and have offered extensive lists of the threats people face behind bars. The mere presence of trans people is not on those lists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Quebec politicians truly cared about incarcerated women, they would make even the slightest effort to address the factors that are causing them to suffer. A Quebec superior judge recently authorized a class-action lawsuit that alleges women in Leclerc, a prison in Laval, have faced dehumanizing conditions such as limited access to healthcare and feminine hygiene products, excessive strip searches, frequent hot-water cuts and mouldy facilities. One plaintiff told the Montreal Gazette<\/em> <\/a>last year that women slept in winter coats during colder months since frigid air often made its way into the facility through holes in the walls. She said that conditions at the prison were so bad that she\u2019d chosen to plead guilty and asked for a longer sentence so that she could be sent to a federal prison rather than back to Leclerc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet in the months since the lawsuit was approved, the provincial government hasn\u2019t stepped in to fix any of these problems with sudden policy shifts. They\u2019re barely willing to acknowledge that these issues exist at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n