‘She is not safe.’ Lawyer says NC transgender inmate who spoke out now faces retaliation
A lawyer for an inmate at North Carolina’s Avery-Mitchell Correctional Institution warned prison officials that they were violating the law by retaliating against the female inmate for telling The News & Observer that she felt unsafe being held at a men’s prison.
Ashlee Inscoe, 40, an intersex, transgender woman, is being held in the Spruce Pine’s men’s prison on a nearly 20-year sentence after calling a television station and admitting to a series of bank robberies.
Inscoe told The N&O that she grew up believing she was a male because of a mistake a doctor made at her birth. It wasn’t until she reached puberty that she realized she was genetically female, but her parents continued to raise her as a boy.
The N.C. Department of Public Safety lists her under her birth name but also has “Ashlee Inscoe” as a searchable alias.
On Sept. 14, The N&O reported that Inscoe said she faced daily harassment, both verbal and physical, and sexual assault at the prison. Emancipate NC had begun a petition to pressure DPS officials to move Inscoe to a women’s prison. The group was also threatening legal action.
On Thursday, Emancipate NC lawyer Elizabeth Simpson, who represents Inscoe, told The N&O that after publication, prison officials confronted Inscoe with the article in hand and asked her to sign an incident report saying she felt safe.
Simpson confronted prison officials about the incident in an email to their general counsel.
Simpson provided to The N&O the back-and-forth between herself and the counselors.
“Ms. Inscoe reported that she was afraid of being sent to protective custody, if she did not comply, where she would lose all property and privileges, and be subjected to inhumane solitary confinement conditions,” Simpson wrote. “Thus, she felt coerced into writing that she is ‘safe,’ even though she is not safe in that facility.
“These actions constitute retaliation and they are unlawful under the Prison Rape Elimination Act,” Simpson wrote.
Prison system denies retaliation
Simpson received an email response from Jodi Harrison, general counsel for DPS. She said Simpson’s emails contained many inaccuracies.
“Warden Honeycutt did not confront Inscoe regarding the news article and in fact has not spoken to her at all since before the article was published,” Harrison wrote. “He asked his PREA Compliance Officer to speak with her to ensure that she had no safety concerns that the facility would need to address, and Ms. Inscoe assured the PCO that she did not.”
PREA stands for the Prison Rape Elimination Act.
Harrison went on to say that if Inscoe does not feel safe she needs to let the facility know and that prison officials would not rely on Simpson’s word about how Inscoe is feeling.
“We cannot reasonably place her in protective custody over her own objections, and I have no doubt you would find that action, were we to undertake it, equally if not more objectionable,” Harrison said. “Ms. Inscoe has not been coerced to do anything, nor has she been retaliated against in any way.”
Harrison told Simpson that the prison officials would continue to talk directly with Inscoe about her safety concerns and make arrangements based on Inscoe’s responses.
Simpson followed up by saying that Inscoe had been petitioning the prison officials to move her to a women’s facility for her safety.
“Your repeated conclusory statements will not be sufficient assurance that she is safe from harm and not subject to coercion and retaliation, while she continues to be a woman incarcerated in a men’s prison,” Simpson wrote.
Both Simpson and Harrison used female pronouns to describe Inscoe, who remains in the men’s prison.
Lawsuit filed against state
Simpson also filed legal action Thursday asking a judge to compel Prison Commissioner Todd Ishee to move Inscoe into a women’s prison.
John Bull, spokesperson for the N.C. prisons, said he was looking into both the lawsuit and the allegations from Inscoe’s lawyer, but that a response would not immediately be available Thursday.
In April 2020, Inscoe asked the Facility Transgender Accommodations Request Committee to reassign her.
The committee had Inscoe seen by an endocrinologist after she made the transfer request in April 2020, according to the lawsuit.
The court documents tell the judge that two doctors have confirmed to the prison that Inscoe is biologically female. They both recommended Inscoe be transferred.
They also said she needed surgery to remove undeveloped reproductive tissue that could be fatal if it remains in place. A surgery has not yet been agreed upon or scheduled.
And last November, the committee denied the request to move Inscoe against the doctors’ recommendations, the lawsuit alleges.
Simpson wrote in the lawsuit that she learned about Inscoe’s case in July and on Aug. 10 requested through Ishee that Inscoe be transferred.
“After back-and-forth correspondence with the general counsel’s office it is clear that Respondent Ishee does not intend to transfer Ms. Inscoe to a women’s facility,” Simpson wrote.
Simpson said asking the courts to compel Ishee to move Inscoe was the only available remedy left.
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 5:14 PM.