Sydney: In a shocking revelation, a transgender woman has disclosed that she was subjected to rape over 2,000 times while she was in an Australian jail after being convicted for stealing a car.
Australia's news.com.au quoted Mary (not her real name) as saying that she was raped daily after being sent to the all-male Boggo Road prison in Queensland in the 1990s.
Mary was sexually assaulted within hours of being sent to the jail.
“You are basically set upon with conversations about being protected in return for sex,” Mary said.
“They are either trying to manipulate you or threaten you into some sort of sexual contact and then, once you perform the requested threat of sex, you are then an easy target as others want their share of sex with you, which is more like rape than consensual sex," she added.
The victim was sent to a number of facilities to complete her four-year-sentence and she was raped in all of them.
Mary said it was not just sexual abuse she had to face. She was also not provided with her hormone treatment while led her to grow her facial hair again.
“It was like my identity was taken away from me,” she said.
"I was flogged and bashed to the point where I knew I had to do it in order to survive, but survival was basically for other prisoners’ pleasure,” she told news.com.au.
“It was hell on earth, it was as if I died and this was my punishment.”
Mary had nothing else but this to day to the authorities, "If a transgender person is genuine and they are living as the opposite sex, then they should be housed in a female prison, even if you’re in a wing on your own."
“You shouldn’t be subjected to sexual assault ... We are human beings and most of us were born this way and we want to just live our lives but are ridiculed by society because we have the guts to be who we are.”
