Developing the "Oppression-to-Incarceration Cycle" of Black American and First Nations Australian Trans Women: Applying the Intersectionality Research for Transgender Health Justice Framework

Abstract

Trans women are disproportionately incarcerated in the United States and Australia relative to the general population. Stark racial and ethnic disparities in incarceration rates mean that Black American and First Nations Australian trans women are overrepresented in incarceration relative to White and non-Indigenous cisgender and trans people. Informed by the Intersectionality Research for Transgender Health Justice (IRTHJ) framework, the current study drew upon lived experiences of Black American and First Nations Australian trans women to develop a conceptual model demonstrating how interlocking forces of oppression inform, maintain, and exacerbate pathways to incarceration and postrelease experiences. Using a flexible, iterative, and reflexive thematic analytic approach, we analyzed qualitative data from 12 semistructured interviews with formerly incarcerated trans women who had been incarcerated in sex-segregated male facilities. Three primary domains-pathways to incarceration, experiences during incarceration, and postrelease experiences-were used to develop the "oppression-to-incarceration cycle." This study represents a novel application of the IRTHJ framework that seeks to name intersecting power relations, disrupt the status quo, and center embodied knowledge in the lived realities of formerly incarcerated Black American and First Nations Australian trans women.

Keywords: health inequities; heteropatriarchy; intersectionality; oppression; systemic racism.

Fig. 1.

Oppression-to-incarceration cycle of Black American and First Nations Australian trans women developed through interviews with formerly incarcerated trans women in the United States and Australia.