Not Yr Cister Press

Gender Anarky members Amazon and Catarina LePre restarted their hunger strike on October 5th after promised changes to trans women’s housing were not met by Warden Paramo and their case worker at the R. J. Donovan Correctional Facility.  Warden Paramo and Amazon’s case worker promised to change the housing conditions of trans women in the facility after a number of days of hunger striking, but  has not implemented any changes.  In response, they have chosen to strike indefinitely until the changes have been implemented.  In a recent communication from Amazon, she describes the situation:

“this time we are striking indefinitely, until this matter is resolved and i am no longer on single-cell status and cat and i are celled up.  today [October 7th] is our third day without food, and we are only drinking two bottles of water a day.  after food, we are going to stop drinking any water.  they are monitoring our health daily, taking our vitals.  so far we have lost ten pounds each, as of today.  cat gets a lil woozy, but we are going thru with this…

…inform [prison officials] of our hunger strike, that it is for transgender housing, that my case worker is preventing me from celling up with cat, that initially the warden instructed her to do it, but she has been avoiding it because she is a feminist hater of trans inmates.  this is the only reason she is discriminating against us… she has lied to us, giving us different reasons for delays that conflict.  we know whats up.  this is straight up discrimination… they don’t want to give us our transgender housing, where two girls can live together, while letting any two men live together who ask to.  and now they are also retaliating because of our hunger strike, trying to punish us by ignoring us now and our hunger strike for protesting in the first place.  so get at them like you need to…

this is a mental health prison, with special structured programs designed for inmates with long-term mental health therapy, and this problem with us is also aggravating our mental health status, making us decompensate, get depressed, suicidal, want to cut.  this is our last resort next to doing something desperate…”

Amazon and Cat’s situation has never been more urgent.  Continue to call Warden Paramo and act in solidarity with our comrades risking their lives to survive in a hellish institution of domination.

Call Warden Paramo the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility: (619) 661-6500

Demand that Eva Contreraz (C-45857)and Catarina LaPre (K-67313) be take off single-cell status and be allowed to share a cell.  Demand that an end to the discriminatory housing policy against trans women in the correctional facility.  Continue to call every day until you receive word that their demands have been met.  The calling system may be confusing, but when in doubt press 3 at the first menu, then 5, and then 1. Also, if you do that and you get a recorded message instead of a person, it is an answering machine — just wait for the end of the recording if you want to leave a message.

Attack!:

Gender Anarky has uncompromisingly attacked transphobic violence within the prison system, and have consistently called for directly attacking the systems of domination that the make living conditions of trans women, both inside and outside prison, a living hell.  Attack the institutions that maintain the miserable system of gender in solidarity with Gender Anarky and the continuing hunger strike.

Write to Amazon and Cat:

Let them know you support their struggle against the the prison administration.  They can be reached at:

Eva Contreraz C-45857
PO Box 799003 (C15-223)
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

Catarina LePre K-67313
PO Box 799003
San Diego, CA 92179-9003

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