Transsexuals can choose jails

2006-03-05 18:29

Madrid - Transsexual inmates in Spain soon will be able to serve their sentences in facilities for men or women according to their "psycho-social identity", and not according to their original gender, reported the El Pais newspaper on Sunday.

According to the centre-left daily, a directive is about to be published concerning the incarceration of individuals who have undergone a sex change.

Transsexuals would be able to ask to serve their sentences in prisons corresponding to their new gender, and prison authorities also would address them by their preferred name, according to the report.

Prison officials would conduct an inquiry to confirm the sexual identity of the prisoner, notably by requiring the inmate to show proof of having started the sex change at least one year before being jailed.

Mercedes Gallizo, the director-general of Spain's prison administration, had already expressed her desire to make these changes in the prison system.

Spanish prisons house about 40 female transsexuals, who were formerly men, but no cases of the opposite sex change, according to the newspaper.

- AFP