Rosa, a trans woman who has been living in men’s prisons for the past eight years, tells us, in Tali Woodward’s “Life in hell” in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, “At one time I was raped by five individuals.”

The way the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sees it, Rosa has a penis, and that makes her a man. Never mind that she hasn’t seen herself as male for decades, or that she’s been taking feminizing hormones since her 16th birthday. Rosa, who is serving 15-to-life for stabbing a man she says was trying to kill her, was never able to afford sex-reassignment surgery. The one time she came close to saving enough money, she spent it helping her sister set up a fruit stand in Mexico. So the prison system put her in with the men.

Rosa, 37, isn’t just out of place: In the hierarchical and hypermasculine world of a men’s prison, she’s the ultimate target. She’s been insulted, degraded, and smacked around countless times. If another inmate is feeling feisty, he’s likely to take it out on her. And if it’s sex someone is craving, there are more than a few reasons he’d look to Rosa to satisfy his desires.

Read more of “Life in hell” here. And check out Denise’s post on this article at Life, Law, Gender.