Fears for safety of transgender woman after she is sent to all-male prison

Tara Hudson will serve her sentence alongside 600 adult men (Picture: SWNS)

The mother of a transgender woman fears for the safety of her ‘gorgeous’ daughter after she was sent to an all-male prison.

Make-up artist Tara Hudson, 26, was born Aaron, but has lived as a female all of her adult life and undergone six years of gender reconstruction surgery.
She was jailed for 12 weeks after admitting assault at a bar last Christmas, and magistrates ruled she should serve her sentence at a Category-B male prison because her passport still classifies her as male.

Her mother, Jackie Brooklyn, called the magistrates’ decision ‘outrageous’ and fears for the safety of her ‘gorgeous’ daughter.

Tara was jailed for 12 weeks (Picture: SWNS)

‘There’s nothing male about her, nobody would know the difference,’ she said.
‘She looks like a woman. I just feel the men are going to go after her.’
Ms Brooklyn said she thought her daughter would be given an electronic tag and made to undergo an alcohol awareness course when she pleaded guilty to the 2014 assault.

Jackie Brooklyn fears for her daughter’s safety 

(Picture: SWNS)

She wasn’t expecting that Tara would have to serve her time at HMP Bristol, where 600 men are incarcerated.

Only yesterday, a prison watchdog said HMP Bristol had an ‘unsafe if not dangerous’ atmosphere and ‘violence, confrontation and tension’ stemming from drug problems in the prison.
‘It is longstanding policy to place offenders according to their legally recognised gender,’ said a spokesperson from the Prison Service.

‘There are strict rules in place to ensure transsexual prisoners are managed safely and in accordance with the law.’

There is now a Change.org petition to allow Tara to serve her sentence at a female prison.

(Picture: SWNS)