House committee reviews H.B. 550 and DOC�practices on gender identity, housing and health care

The House Corrections and Institutions Committee on Feb. 18 received a briefing on H.B. 550 and the Vermont Department of Corrections(DOC) approach to housing and health care for transgender, intersex and gender-diverse incarcerated people.

DOC officials said the department began addressing gender-identity issues about a decade ago and issued an early policy in 2015 that recognized pronouns and allowed housing consideration based on gender identity rather than assigned sex at birth. "This is our first real look see and discussion on gender equity, within our DOC facility," the committee chair said as the hearing opened.

Facilities staff described a programmatic evolution that includes mandatory staff training, an "identities" unit in the academy curriculum and a facility-level and central review process for individual housing plans. "Identity is what you say your identity is ... We're going with that," said the DOC facilities deputy director, describing how intake preferences and pronouns are recorded and communicated to staff through the offender-management system (OMS).

DOC explained the operational process: the local multidisciplinary team (custody, casework, medical, mental-health, programming) develops a housing plan, the site PREA compliance manager forwards it to central office and a central committee (classification, women's services, medical and mental-health representatives and others) reviews and signs off. DOC officials said they review accommodations and housing at least every six months and have an established grievance process for people who disagree with decisions.

Officials listed common accommodations that can be requested and granted, such as increased shower privacy, shaving accommodations and access to presentation aids (binders, chest plates, packers). They emphasized that routine personal items are provided according to the facilitypolicy and equitably: "If we give cisgender females these things, we give transgender females these things," a DOC presenter said.

Wellpath, the DOCmedical contractor, described clinical work to track and deliver gender-affirming care. Wellpath's state medical director said the provider created a gender-affirming-care committee, a critical-event notification system for clinical cases and weekly clinical reviews for patients seeking hormones, surgeries or housing-related clinical input. Dr. Allison Richards, a Wellpath psychiatrist, said the contractor has instituted mandatory training for health staff and added WPATH-trained mentors to help guide clinical decisions.

The committee also confronted evidence and concerns about out-of-state placements. A member recounted testimony from a formerly incarcerated woman who said she experienced misgendering and sexual violence while held in out-of-state private facilities, including a CoreCivic site in Mississippi. Committee members pressed DOC on whether vulnerable people are still being sent to out-of-state contracts and how complaints there are investigated.

DOC said it had returned several people from Mississippi after finding care gaps and that it now places transgender people out of state only after an extra level of review. "We brought back folks very specifically, due to some concerns about whether or not the care there was consistent with our expectations," DOC staff said, adding that they work with local law enforcement and prosecutors where appropriate.

Members asked how DOC balances respect for identity, safety of the individual and safety of others. DOC officials said individualized assessment remains the "gold standard"; housing decisions weigh a person's history of violence, sexual behavior, clinical and mental-health status and facility characteristics. Officials cautioned that creating designated "trans-only" units is generally prohibited under PREA standards (except under court-ordered consent decrees) and can have unintended consequences.

Committee members also raised a federal audit issue: DOC staff discussed a recent Department of Justice/OJP memo directing auditors not to use transgender/intersex-related PREA standards when scoring audits. DOC said the federal law (the Prison Rape Elimination Act) has not changed and that Vermont will continue to track transgender measures internally so the state can assess risk and response even if federal auditors stop counting those standards.

Data provided during the briefing included a DOC count of 14 individuals identified as transgender in the system as of Jan. 22. DOC said it reviews cases weekly and can convene emergency reviews for arrivals during weekends or holidays.

The committee did not vote on H.B. 550 at the hearing. The chair asked DOC and sponsors to provide language notes and documents and proposed a two-hour working session with legal counsel early next week to refine bill text and follow up on specific concerns.

What to watch next: the committee's scheduled working session, any proposed language revisions to H.B. 550, and whether the state adopts formal measures to audit transgender-related PREA protections in light of federal auditing changes.