In prisons across England and Wales, transgender and non-binary individuals face unique and complex challenges. From navigating restrictive dress codes to the critical need for gender-affirming care, their experiences highlight issues often overlooked in broader conversations about justice and inclusion.
In this thought-provoking episode of the Emerald Podcast Series, Host Rebecca Torr speaks with Dr Saoirse O'Shea, a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisation Studies at The Open University Business School, and Dr Olga Suhomlinova, Associate Professor in Management at the University of Leicester School of Business. They discuss insights from their book, Transgender and Non-Binary Prisoners’ Experiences in England and Wales, which explores the personal narratives and systemic barriers faced by these marginalised groups.
The discussion covers anti-trans sentiment, ethical research considerations, prison policies, and the resilience of individuals navigating their gender journeys behind bars. With correspondence spanning three years and stories vividly illustrating prison realities, this episode sheds light on how inclusivity, compassion, and thoughtful policymaking can drive meaningful change.
Speaker profile
Dr Saoirse O'Shea is a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisation Studies at The Open University Business School. Saoirse is a nonbinary person who underwent ‘gender affirming surgery’ in December 2020. Saoirse sometimes writes about their lived experiences as a nonbinary person and has been published in Organisation, Management Learning, and Gender, Work and Organisation on this. They like cats, chocolate, and tattoos.
Dr Olga Suhomlinova is an Associate Professor in Management at the University of Leicester School of Business. She is a trans ally who raised a daughter with a transgender father. (The daughter, who is now a comedian and a playwright, beautifully depicts her childhood experiences in her show ‘My dad wears a dress’). Her research over the years has been eclectic, but broadly focuses on institutions and identities, and has been published in American Sociological Review, British Journal of Criminology, Gender, Work and Organisation, Human Relations, Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, and Organisation Studies.

Podcast Host
Rebecca Torr is the Publishing Development Manager for Sustainable Structures and Infrastructures and works with authors and organisations in engineering subjects such as civil engineering and materials science to further the impact of research in the real world. As part of her hosting role on the Emerald Podcast Series, Rebecca interviews experts who use research to create real impact.
In this episode:
- How does the prison environment affect access to gender-affirming care?
- What are the ethical challenges researchers face when engaging with marginalised prison populations?
- How has media coverage impacted policy and public perception?
- What lessons can broader society learn from these experiences to foster inclusivity?
Transcript
Gender behind bars – the struggles of transgender and non-binary prisoners
Rebecca Torr (RT): Hi I’m Rebecca Torr and welcome to the Emerald Podcast Series. In today’s episode, we will discuss the experiences of transgender and non-binary prisoners with our guests Dr Saoirse O'Shea, a Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisation Studies at The Open University Business School, and Dr Olga Suhomlinova, an Associate Professor in Management at the University of Leicester School of Business. Our conversation will focus on Olga and Saoirse’s book, Transgender and Non-binary Prisoners’ Experiences in England and Wales. Their book explores two small groups in men’s prisons: openly transgender women and semi-visible non-binary prisoners. The project, based on correspondence with prisoners in England and Wales, spanned over three years. Join us to learn more about their research, the impact of anti-trans sentiment, and the ethical considerations they faced.
Olga Suhomlinova (OS): We did have to make the confession at the start, because we are not criminologists by training. We've never been to prison. But it's not like, you know, we started with completely blank slate, because we've done plenty of homework before we submitted even the project for approval, because the projects of this kind, or anything to do with prisons, have to go through National Research Council or for His Majesty's Prison probation service and through at ethics review at university, and at the early stages, support from two great criminologists here at the University of Leicester and the social psychologist. But then we were brutally honest with our participants, and we in some of our questions, we said, ‘Okay, so that's what we know, that's what we learned based on policy, that's what we read in the books. Is that so? Is that true? Feel free to correct us. We are experts in something, but we're not experts in everything, and obviously in the matters of your experience in your daily life, you are the experts. And so they wrote us and explained things to us, and were happy to correct us where we went wrong, and happy to help us expand the project, because we started with what we thought was a comprehensive list of questions, but then this our respondents were asking us, well, what about this or what about that? And why have you not considered this issue in detail and then something fairly what we thought straightforward, one question would turn into multi question questionnaire, with many of these questions supplied by our respondents. And also, as we were learning about things you know, we're getting more and more questions you know, you, you read and the policy that say all individuals who declare their transgender must be permitted to present and express themselves in the gender with which they identify and provided with access to the relevant facilities list. What facilities list? There's national facilities list, there's local facilities list. National list says what prisoners are allowed to have in their possession, but then local facilities list provides more details. But does it answer our question, can a transgender woman prisoner wear feminine clothes? We don't know, and sometimes the national policy would say something. National policy says prisoners are allowed to have black leggings, and then local policy says, No, you're not allowed black liking so national policy says you can have any footwear, as long as the heels are no higher than three inches, and not stilettos. But then local policy says, oh, but you can't have mid calf boots. You can only have ankle high boots. And then the policy says, Well, you know, transgender prisoners should be able to wear clothing that fits their gender as long as it fits with prison rules. So there's not on the national facilities list. There's prison rules, which prison rules? There's the statutory document that says prison rules last issued in 1999 but it doesn't tell you anything. It just says that the state is obligated to provide prisoners with clothing adequate for women health. What's that? How is that? And then the policy said, well, gender expression must comply with relevant dress codes based on decency and taking into account any potential vulnerability of the individual. What dress codes? Again, there's nothing about dress codes in the national policy. Where are they? And so you start asking, and you start finding out and what prison issue clothing these days. You know, obviously there's no broad arrow uniform, there's no orange jumpsuits like Orange is The New Black. But what is it? What are they? And then policy says, Okay, so, but everything also must be subject to risk security and operational assessment, and you want, okay, so how hair or makeup could be security risk, and then you find out wigs could be a security risk, because, you know what, if prisoner puts on the wigs and no one would recognise them, and they would escape, or in our case, we even had transwomen prisoners were not allowed to have plastic hair clips for security reasons, or non binary prisoner was not allowed to have the headband. So, yeah, so anything simple turns out into big and, you know, we just started talking about dress codes and what they are allowed to wear, and items of personal care. That doesn't stop at what you're allowed. It's also what you can access there. And well, how do you access things in prison? What can you buy what you can't buy, what can be or cannot be sent to you by your family and friends. And then there's also issues of affordability. And you start asking questions about, okay, so how are you for money? You know, delicate question. But where do you get your money from? And so how do you earn money in prison? And so that becomes a very detailed description of transgender prisoner, but also general prisoner experience. And one of our respondents remarked when they did write the review of our final manuscript, that our book is not just about trans it's a prison primer, as I put it, that easily lays out prison realities that even specialist prison books struggle to lay out, and by coming from outside the system, we haven't overlooked things that most authors who write within the system, or who knows the system, are overlooked because they're taken for granted or too obvious for them to mention.
RT: I think that's absolutely incredible. And you know that one subject matter, you know, clothing, dress code, can have so many areas of research and understanding and information, sort of missing information, or, you know that, I mean that those things that you just described would not be obvious to the average person. You know, it's not something that comes to mind. You wouldn't even consider those things. So sounds such an eye opener, you know, to actually have those tangible points of people's experiences. And I guess that's what's really interesting about your book, is the things that came out from those conversations that haven't been touched in other books, you know, and I don't know if Saoirse wants to come in here to talk about some of the key things that you found that came through the book, and what those responses were that were quite surprising.
Saoirse O'Shea (SO): For myself. I mean, I found it incredibly depressing of how so many of our correspondents were pretty much frozen on entry, on being allowed to continue with their gender journey, so their ability to continue with any medication they had prior to coming into prison, or to be able to start to access support, medical support, and medication and so on, to allow them to start to transition. Maybe it was because I was going through the whole process of transition that for me was particularly difficult to read. But these people were so often being pushed back, not necessarily by the prison system, but by the NHS, people who were supposed to support trans people in transition. They were just some of them. My reading is that some of these doctors would turn around and essentially say, you're living a real life, so we're not going to progress your journey. You can't do anything until you come outside. And there was I, so incredibly lucky to be able to move through my journey, which has been denied to others, these people who have already had their dignity and their liberty taken away from them as punishment for whatever crimes they might have committed, and then we punish them more. Well, I just found that really quite horrific.
OS: Sorry to add to the horrificness, but so Saoirse discussed, very important key theme is the poor access to gender affirming care, and I have already touched on the material side of things. There's also very important area of relationships and interactions with the staff and other prisoners, how trans prisoners are treated, who their friends and foes are, and, of course, also the relationships they try to maintain with family and friends on the outside. But the key issue here that emerged was one of safety, and that's why we devote the whole chapter in the book to safety and violence, violence against transgender prisoners, physical violence our respondents Being physically attacked, hot watered, having excrement thrown at them, verbally harassed, from incessant sexual innuendo to threat of violence to being addressed and treated as not human as it and sexual violence because they were several cases of our correspondence having been raped in prison. Yeah, harrowing, really harrowing stories.
RT: Gosh, I mean, it's such it's shocking to hear that you know you would have found, you were discovered that their experiences through these letters and their outlet was to you, and you obviously documented this in the book, which is an opportunity in the sense of getting their stories out. And obviously in the book, you have represented sort of their experiences in their own words, which obviously you felt that that was a way to it was important for you to convey their experiences authentically. And I just wonder, how did you achieve that? Because was that quite difficult to put across? I don't know. You know, sort of how you sort of went, went about that, but maybe you can explain it to us.
OS: To start with, most of our correspondents were actually brilliant writers. We were incredibly lucky, and some of them actually won the prison competition prizes for their writings and for their pros and poetry. Some contributed to the national prison newspapers. You know, it's quite common for researchers to, you know when, when you quote, you did? You do bits and pieces? Yes, you have few words from one person, few words from another person. And it's, it's a collage. And we did quite a lot so that we could explain what were the commonalities within this group, as well as differences. But we also wanted to have this individual stories, this individual narrative, the story of their life, told as much as possible in their own words, in as much as possible, unbroken narrative. And we quite often invited narratives. And one was actually also, Saoirse supplied part of it. For instance, we asked them to describe a life and a day, following the template of the Sunday Times where some famous person is asked to describe their day, but not just the day, you know what happens during the day, but how their entire life is kind of reflected through one day of what they do. And to give some examples, we both supply some of the Sunday Times examples and Saoirse own description of their day when they were in dire straits, wasn't it Saoirse and and so our correspondents wrote us these marvelous descriptions of their day and and how they their whole life comes um, sharing through the things that that happened to them and and the memories that come to them. So that was on one example, and we also asked them to write personal introductions to the reader, and we also did Saoirse was talking about transgender journeys. We asked them about their journeys before prison and in prison, and try to have those individual stories to show a whole person.
SO: Yeah, I mean, we have nearly around about half a million words of transcribed letters from our correspondence to us. But on top of a half million, we also have other material from them, but as Olga’s already said, we have facilities lists, we have poems, we have cards that they have sent us at Christmas.
OS: We have prison newsletters that they were sent to us. We were able to reconstruct the whole COVID in one prison, as it happened. You know, every week what was going on based on the newsletter issued by that prison that were regularly sent to us for two years by one of the correspondents.
SO: We've got things like drawings of what their cells are like, including laying out the dimensions. And I think Olga's actually in where she lives, was actually outlined the dimensions of a cell on a street in town to try and give people the idea this is the place we can find people in. This is actually how small it is, and they are there over 22 hours a day, not just for days in their life, but for weeks and months.
RT: And that's incredible, but it's such a gift. The book such a gift to understanding their experiences. And you know, sort of obviously it was, it was conducted during a period where there was an increasing amount of anti trans sentiment in the media. Did that environment affect the narratives you collected and the overall project in any way, did it come through? I don't know if it even impacted yourself when you were obviously asked asking questions that you put forward to them.
OS: Well, it certainly impacted not just the narratives, but actual prisoners, conditions and how they were treated and the policies as well. Because, remember, there was a high day of trans rights. Yes, we had transgender tipping point in 2014 and Laverne Cox was, you know, the picture girl of that moment, because she was on the cover of Times. And then in this country, Conservative government decided that, after the success of the marriage same sex act of 2013 trans would be it, yes, it would be great. You know, it would be our next equality frontier. Then we had the quite trans positive prison policy following the women's and equality committee report into trans equalities in 2016 and the policy extent in 2017 and then, as you may recall, all hell break loose. In the run up to the governmental consultation on potential changes to the gender recognition act, we had quite a lot of anti trans sentiment and organisations that were specifically created in order to prevent what they called gender self identification from happening, because the presumption was that you know, you would open the floodgates, and there would be people pretending to be transgender, who know what, and would be looking to get into the women's spaces with the explicit goal of sexually assaulting or discomforting women. So yeah, so there was this backlash against progress of transfer rights, and that backlash has manifested in both the both these, you know, social media and traditional media, and there was even the organisation just disbanded this year, Keep Prison SingleSsex. Um, so when we started in 2019, there was already this growing animosity, and there's a case in the autumn of 2018 of a transgender woman who was remanded into prison for assaulting their neighbor with a knife and after being remanded in the into the men's prison, she requested transfer to women's prison, and the transfer, following the prison procedure, was granted. I mean, later it transpired that the rules were not followed and she should not have been transferred, but she was, and once in the women's prison, she actually assaulted two prisoners. Well, we're not talking rape. She just pressed herself against another prisoner in queue for medication, and another case was that she placed a hand of another prisoner on her breast. But after that, she was transferred back to the men's estate. The there was the police investigation, and police also unearthed that you know, she had previous convictions for sexual assault on young boys, and then two women came forward that she raped them before incarceration. So the, as a result of that, not only was she transferred back to men's prison, but she also was convicted to life imprisonment. And Ministry of Justice apologised and said they would tighten the rules. And they did tighten the rules in 2019 to make it even more difficult, really impossible, for transgender women to move from men's prisons to women's prisons. And that happened in August 2019, a month after we started our project, and there was, and still is, that was at a point so much media about this person, their name is Karen White, in every paper, and it still is every time transgender prisoners are mentioned, her name is mentioned, and almost every time transgender women are mentioned, her name is mentioned. So the effect on transgender prisoners in prison was extremely bad. Now you have to on top of all the challenges they normally have to cope with in prison. Now you have to start when defensive position and explain to everyone that you're not a faker, you're not a pretender, you're not a predator, you don't want to get into women's prison to sexually assault prisoners. So that's emotionally, psychologically, tremendously difficult and and all our correspondents also were writing to us and explaining, no, you know, that they don't want to get into women’s prisons. No, they're not pretending. And you know, they haven't. I haven’t transitioned in prison and for 10 years I was on the outside before, I'm not a pretend. But it also affects everyone in prison, other prisoners who now think, well, transgender women prisoners are a fair game. Everyone is against them. It affects prison staff, who think, well, you know, transgender prisoners must be extra risky, and it affects prison policies. And this has not abated since you know, it has been only getting worse. Yes, the following these tightening of the policies in 2019 there was yet another tightening of policies in 2023, so two years after the policies were tightened in 2019, in 2021 there was, there was a just judicial review case questioning whether the policies weren't good enough. And it was decided yes, they were good enough. They protected everyone well, but the anti-trans activists were pushing so hard that two years later, the Conservative government decided, well, let's, let's make the policies, yeah, yes, stricter and the policies, and when you start focusing policy on just one thing, location, yes, it kind of in the latest version, it looks like all other areas that are important for prisoners life get forgotten when you start mentioning the word risk 10 times as frequently as you did in the previous policy. Then everything else just doesn't get mentioned or doesn't get the same space. Um, so that was and is an issue.
SO: I mean, as Olga said, with the Karen White case, the media took a very specific example, and then they didn't just generalise it to the trans prison population. They've generalised it trans people in every part of society, and it's akin to taking the worst of us the same rule like that. It would be like turning around and saying all women are represented by rules where, all men are the Kray twins and so on. And it doesn't just affect trans people who are in prison. And it’s targeted against all trans people, and because it started against all trans people, it then also means that we are more likely to be stopped by the police. We are more likely to go to court. The court is more likely to find us guilty of a crime and put us in jail and therefore prove that trans people are more criminal.
RT: That's incredibly insightful. Yeah, I think you know, just understanding how those policies have really impacted people's lives, and then it's become, it's a sort of a snowball effect on more and more prisoners than inevitably ending up, you know, perhaps where they shouldn't. I was quite interested in sort of the lessons that you learned from your correspondence that because we've been talking about policies, and so I was wondering how those lessons that you've learned could inform broader discussions about inclusion and support for transgender and non binary individuals in society. And Saoirse you were just touching on that really, sort of, you know, the next thing is, this is the reality. This is what's been happening. But what discussions could we have, or what could be done in the future to inform, you know, sort of changes to policy, or just general awareness and discussions?
SO: Yeah, I think for myself, I mean, I'm going to come back to the Karen White case. I think it's a depiction, or I would say it's a depiction of bad policies made quickly as a knee jerk and particularly in response to a public out pouring which didn't know and understand the story properly. I find it shocking that when we have had policies which were progressive, they took years and years to develop and then there was overturned in a matter of months because of one single case, I think I would suggest a lesson we should learn is to be far, far slower to judge.
OS: Oh yes on that. You know, we actually need to listen more to the people about who we make the policies. So our whole book is trying to bring transgender and non binary prisoners voices out and just greater um openness and greater integration of people into the policy making. We also need to appreciate how difficult transgender experiences are in or outside of prison, and we do tend to gloss over, yeah, well, you know, marginalised, vulnerable, equality, diversity, inclusion, yes, but, and I mean, we didn't want to sensationalise our the experiences of our participants. We don't want it to turn into Daily Mail style piece, but at this at the same time, people need to be a bit more compassionate, not a strong trade off, as far as we know, of you know, people in this country, because did you know that the majority of people, nearly 50% according to the polls, think that prison conditions in this country are too easy, and only 7% think that they're too harsh.
RT: Wow, that's that very interesting statistic, isn't it? Considering the experiences of the people that you were corresponding with. I think, you know, when we sort of look at your book and, and you mentioned there, sort of, you know, it being an eye opener and, and, you know, exposing, sort of people's experiences and, and sort of, what you know, whether it's inside or outside of the prison, it's, it's, some of the experiences will, will be the same. I just wondered, if you know what your main goals are for this book and and sort of you know what difference it can make, ultimately, to the justice system.
SO: I would hope that the authorities in the United Kingdom, Ministry of Justice, HMPPS, the government might actually read and think about how their policies and their procedures and arrests actually affect people. I would hope that the tabloid press might think about how what they say makes the lives of vulnerable minorities worse. Maybe I'm not really cynical, but I very much doubt that’s gonna happen. I would imagine that those who are anti trans won't even bother really engaging with the book. They will just write it off as propaganda.
RT: Thank you for joining us for this enlightening discussion on the experiences of transgender and non-binary prisoners. A special thanks to our guests for sharing their expertise and experiences with us today. You can find more information and a transcript of the episode, on our website. A final thanks goes to Podcast Producer Daniel Ridge, and the studio This is Distorted. This is Rebecca Torr, signing off. See you next time!

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