The following is a guest blog post, under the series “Rene Records”–Rene is currently incarcerated in a federal prison in Alabama. Please consider giving to her commissary fundraiser (funds are also used to support her reading group and fellow political prisoners). You can also support her boo here, as well as her co-defendant Cody, here. The best method of support for her other co-defendant, MJ, is to send donations to $JohnLungaho on CashApp.
August 17th: Reflections
This topic is honestly super fun for me to talk about—I studied anthropology in college and spent a lot of time reading and studying subcultures, especially lgb/tgnc cultures/history, so ofc I immediately took an interest in the way gay culture and dating culture manifests in women’s prisons.
Most of all, I found myself very impressed by the amount of resourcefulness and creativity it takes in prison to flag, express your identities, perform rituals and create culture, as everything about prison as an institution is designed to suppress these things. Maybe that’s *why* it’s so important. One thing that’s certain: rituals and traditions are everything in prison.
I’d argue that flagging is even more important in here than on the outs bc there’s so few ways to communicate information about yourself to other people. think about it: there’s no social media—you can’t just put your pronouns and “femme lesbian” or whatever in your bio and call it a day. You don’t have things like bandanas or “dyke” shirts or earrings or docs or literal pride flags/pride iconography. So people have to get creative.
This is more prevalent across the street (at the larger, higher-security prison)—but rumor is that women over there braid up one side of their hair in three corn rows, then let the other side down. this indicates you’re gay and available. another way to indicate availability (this is much more well-known—to the point where it’s even referenced and parodied in pop culture) is to pull the pockets out of your grey sweats and let them hang out (but this is cliche to the point where people will make fun of you for it lol—at least it is here).
And since we can’t buy pride shit, people make it! I have never seen so many artistically talented people in one place before. We trade commissary with the hobbycraft girls to get crocheted and beaded accessories. During pride month, there was rainbow everything here! It was wonderful to see. my friend and I got matching rainbow beaded bracelets. I know someone who has a crocheted rainbow shoulder bag she carries everywhere, another girl here has a crocheted rainbow headband. My other friend who has a rainbow bracelet woven with sewing threads. An older butch (who has been crocheting for thirty years and is probably the most skilled at it, out of everyone here) made me a bag to carry my stuff to the halfway house. She surprised me by putting a bunch of rainbow hearts in the design 🙂
All masc-presenting people and people who take on a masc role in relationships are referred to as “bois” here. I see it almost as a gender all on its own, unique specifically to women’s prisons and very much wrapped up in gay dating culture. studs, stemmes, trans men, even aggressive fems and no-labels can be considered “bois”— it honestly seems to have more to do with your attitude/behavior and the role you play in your relationships and dating, though the way you look and present yourself is also important, too.
I think it’s worth mentioning that almost every aspect of prison culture in general is tied to Black culture in some way—whether the term or tradition originated in Black communities outside or inside first, is less clear. For example—very masculine-presenting lesbians who play a traditionally masculine role in relationships are always called studs in here, regardless of their ethnicity. I haven’t heard anyone say “butch” here.
Another thing: nearly everything that is popularly known about prison culture on the outs is primarily informed by men’s prisons (I think maybe Orange is the New Black changed that slightly, but still). It makes sense bc the vast majority of incarcerated people are men. However, culture and social dynamics in women’s prisons are *so* different from men’s, from what I’ve heard. While women’s prisons have a robust and very gay culture of consensual sex and dating, the culture in men’s prisons sounds violent, homophobic, and very hierarchical. At best, there’s simply no openly gay behavior, and it’s all very discreet, at its worst, instead of consensual relationships, there are exploitative ones where some men are targeted for sexual abuse and harassment, or coerced/forced into dynamics where they perform sexual favors for protection. That is so vastly different from life here, in a women’s minimum security prison, and from what I’ve heard, so vastly different from even the higher-security women’s prisons. Social life in women’s prisons tend to revolve around pseudo-families, instead of hierarchies of power.
Rene is a queer Korean journalist, sex worker, political prisoner and beloved comrade. You can find her writing at Autostraddle • Truthout • ThoughtCatalog • Arkansas Public Media • and KUAR.