There’s power in listening, Jamie Grace Alexander says.
As one of seven leaders of the Trans Rights Advocacy Coalition (TRAC) in Maryland, Alexander is familiar with using her voice for action. The group lobbies legislators during the session, works to build relationships with government agencies, and helps organize coalition members.
But it was a conversation with a young trans person who had recently been released from the city’s central booking that emphasized the importance of listening for Alexander.
Alexander, who had been working on an oral history project at the time, asked if she could record their conversation, and the two passed a microphone back and forth as they talked.
“I was really surprised at how heard it made her feel,” Alexander said.
“I thought that it would make her feel like I was taking something from her, but it actually made her feel like I was double listening to her.”
The coalition’s newest project — listening sessions that pair coalition members with formerly incarcerated trans people to record and archive their stories — was born out of that moment.
TRAC received a grant from the “Gender Reveal” podcast to conduct the listening sessions, titled the Solitary to Solidarity Fellowship. Applications will open for the fellowship in late June.
“I really want to cultivate that listening, particularly between members of our coalition who haven’t experienced incarceration and members of our community who have,” Alexander said.
“I really want to cultivate that listening, particularly between members of our coalition who haven’t experienced incarceration and members of our community who have.”
Jamie grace alexander
She hopes that the more the coalition understands the concerns of incarcerated trans people, the more they’ll be able to work with a sense of urgency to improve their living conditions.
TRAC was formed in 2022 leading up to the 2023 Maryland General Assembly session when the Trans Health Equity Act passed, after its core organizers wrote the bill and lobbied for it as individuals in the 2022 session. The law, which went into effect on January 1, 2024, requires Maryland’s Medicaid system to cover all gender-affirming health care.
A bill passed in the 2024 General Assembly session also codifies gender-affirming health care as legally protected.
But at the same time that TRAC was working on that bill, they were also working on the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act, which didn’t pass.
The bill would have required the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to “provide gender-appropriate housing placement and search procedures, including for transgender, nonbinary, intersex, two-spirit, and other gender diverse individuals.”
Currently, incarcerated trans people in Maryland are housed either in solitary confinement or according to their physical genitalia. The department told the Baltimore Sun that it houses incarcerated trans people in accordance with the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), but other reports and policies highlighted by the Sun show that the department instead relies on someone’s surgical status.
The department is being sued in federal court by three trans women who say that the agency violated the PREA by not housing them according to their gender identity.
Despite the lawsuits the department has faced in recent years and the testimonies that advocates provided about how the department’s policies leave trans people at risk for sexual abuse and violence, the Transgender Respect, Agency and Dignity Act didn’t make it out of committee, one of the first stages of becoming a law.
“Whenever I would show up in the space and try to talk up the Respect, Agency, Dignity Act, which had to do with trans prison conditions, I was told by a legislator, you know, ‘focus on one bill at a time,’” Alexander said.
“People do not have the bandwidth to think about trans issues as more than one issue. And I was like, that’s so annoying. That’s so dehumanizing.”
“People do not have the bandwidth to think about trans issues as more than one issue. And I was like, that’s so annoying. That’s so dehumanizing.”
Jamie grace alexander
With the listening sessions, Alexander wants the rights of incarcerated trans people to become the focus of the coalition. Instead of focusing on legislation, TRAC is now working directly with the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to change its policies.
TRAC is also putting together a survey to hear directly from trans people in prison, as there’s little data that currently exists. Paired with the testimonies from the listening sessions, Alexander hopes that they can fact-check the department on the conditions that incarcerated trans people are facing.
The work is important, but it can also be exhausting.
Although TRAC has had big wins in its first few legislative sessions around protecting and increasing access to gender-affirming health care, Alexander said it also often feels like they have to beg legislators to recognize their humanity.
“Who are our biggest supporters? Trans people,” she said. “We are always testing the endurance of our cis allies, I would say. Whereas our trans allies understand the urgency from a material perspective.”
But it’s moments where lobbying produces tangible improvements in the lives of trans people that Alexander said reminds her how empowering the work can be.
During her first session lobbying in Annapolis, Alexander was advocating for an “X,” or nonbinary, option on Maryland state IDs.
Before the law was passed, nonbinary people had to provide proof that showed they were nonbinary. Now it’s just a button on a kiosk.
“People feel like these things that are small inconveniences that only exist for that marginalized group are just part of life,” Alexander said.
“We can actually target those strategic points, especially as we see them.”
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