Enforcing Gender: The Constitution of Sex and Gender in Prison Regimes

Abstract

This article examines how gender identities are constituted through contemporary practices of imprisonment in the United States and in England and Wales, with particular attention to transgender prisoners. I draw on recent queer theory, transgender studies, and Michel Foucault’s work, including what he refers to in the 1977–78 Collège de France lectures as “a triangle: sovereignty, discipline, and governmental management.” All three of these techniques of power operate within prisons, from the use of violent sovereign power in physical and sexual assaults to the gendered disciplinary norms involved in rules about prisoners’ clothing and appearance. The management of populations through biopower occurs throughout these prison systems, including in the categorization of prisoners by sex or gender, in their placement in a men’s or women’s facility, and in government statistics about prison populations. I present a brief comparison of gender recognition policies in the United Kingdom and the United States and then analyze the role of the English and American prison systems in constructing sex and gender identities. Gendered power dynamics are particularly evident in the policies and practices toward transgender prisoners in the United States, who are often placed in inappropriate facilities, face high rates of violence and rape, and are erased from official reports and statistics. Just as Foucault used his analysis of the prison to show how disciplinary power operates in broader society, I conclude that contemporary prisons constitute and reinforce binary sex identities, normative gender identities, and violent forms of masculinity.