Queers Behind Bars: Representations of LGBTQ+ in Prison Narratives

Catalog description

According to the Sentencing Project, "LGBTQ+ people experience high rates of homelessness, poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and violence—factors which drive their overrepresentation in the criminal legal system. In both adult and youth facilities, imprisoned LGBTQ+ people face physical, sexual, and verbal harassment and abuse, as well as a lack of gender-affirming housing, clothing, personal hygiene products, medical care, and mental health treatment." This course will examine diverse representations and core human rights issues in the stories of incarcerated LGBTQ+ people. How do fact-based and fictional narratives inform our discourse about the complexity of this often invisible and silenced population? What links exist between the historical criminalization of queer sexuality and the current verrepresentation of queer people behind bars? Texts for discussion will include From the Pen: A Prison Memoir; Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex; and Orange Is the New Black; and TV series and movies such as Orange Is the New Black, Oz, Wentworth, Caged, and I Love You, Phillip Morris.