Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/684586865355123/

Join a growing coalition of groups outside the CA corrections department in a rally to expose #MeTooBehindBars!

#MeTooBehindBars is a campaign to expose the specific ways in which the prison system uses sexual and gender-based violence, including homophobia and transphobia, to target the people who they incarcerate and whose daily lives they have almost total control over. The campaign was launched in response to two assaults where correctional officers (COs) used physical force, sexually harassment, and homophobic and transphobic insults against transgender, gender non-conforming (GNC) and/or queer people at women’s prisons in California. The campaign supports a lawsuit filed against the CDCR by five plaintiffs who were targeted while at CCWF.

#MeTooBehindBars is an attempt to expand the understanding of gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and harassment beyond specific incidences and as a systematic form of power and control enacted through institutions, legislation and the courts. Specifically, it exposes how women, transgender, gender non-conforming and queer people remain unprotected from daily harassment, humiliation, violence, deadly assault, disrespect, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia and how the system fails to hold accountable those who inflict these harms. #MeTooBehindBars also aims to influence the MeToo movement, by encouraging models of transformative justice rather than expansions of the carceral system. It is part of initiatives to stop punishing women, transgender, gender non-conforming and queer people for the trauma, violence and exploitation we’ve experienced and the ways that we survive and defend ourselves, our children and our families.

Why the rally: To lift up the experiences of violence, harassment, and hate targeted at transgender, gender non-conforming (TGNC) and queer prisoners in women’s prisons in California and in solidarity with all TGNC and queer prisoners in prisons and jails across California and the U.S.

Date/Time: Wednesday, Oct 30 @ 12 noon

Location: California Department of Corrections and “Rehabilitation” (CDCr), 151 S. St., #101N, Sacramento, CA 95811

To connect with carpools being arranged from the Bay Area and Los Angeles, email MeTooBehindBars@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/metoobehindbars
womenprisoners.org