Content warning: This article discusses the intent to die by suicide.
A 50-year-old trans prisoner at the all-male HM Prison Preston in Lancashire UK has revealed she is going on a hunger strike until the government recognises her gender.
Marie Dean wrote to friends in a letter that, according to the Guardian, was dated earlier this month where she revealed she'd rather die than be refused her gender identity.
"I decided yesterday that I don’t want to be alive anymore," the letter reportedly said. "I stopped eating and drinking and should die in about three, maybe four weeks. I think three [trans] girls have killed themselves now, but I think they did it too quickly. I remember Bobby Sands years ago, not eating and drinking until he died. His belief drove him to succeed."
Bobby Sands was a member of the IRA who led a hunger strike in 1981 while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze, who died after six days on strike.
Dean isn't the first trans prisoner in the UK to complain about being singled out and dehumanised by prisons, last year an inquest into the suicide of another prisoner, Jenny Swift, found that transgender prisoners at the HMP Doncaster were also being bullied by guards.
Despite Dean being forced into an all-male prison, the Ministry of Justice has published guidelines for trans prisoners which states, "all transgender prisoners (irrespective of prison location) must be allowed to express the gender with which they identify".
Dean was jailed "indefinitely" in 2009 after committing more than 30 offences including voyeurism and aggravated burglary.
An online petition has now been set up in an attempt to assist Dean, calling on the government to recognise her gender and reposition her into a female estate.
"Transgender people should not have their identity removed if they are unfortunate enough to enter our Justice system" the Change.org description reads.
"Prison is a punishment that meaning the loss of liberty, it does not, however, mean that someone should have their identity stripped from them."
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