“Coming Out as Female Has Been a Gradual Process”: Combating Trans Necropolitical Governance in Canadian Corrections

Abstract This article examines Bianca Lovado’s human rights complaints as the first trans woman transferred from a men’s to a women’s remand facility in British Columbia, Canada. Despite the initial transfer, upon re-arrest, Ms. Lovado was inconsistently placed in men’s and women’s facilities and was denied gender-affirming care between 2015 and 2019. Drawing on theories of biopolitical and queer/trans necropolitical governance, I conduct a thematic analysis of her five complaints against BC Corrections. The paper investigates how, despite human rights legislation protecting gender identity and expression, cisnormative sex-based correctional logics regulate trans prisoners. Building on Foucault’s institutions of power , I identify how cisnormative techniques of power led Ms. Lovado to face necropolitical violence via incorrect prison placement and denial of gender-affirming care. Analyzing how Ms. Lovado uses the tribunal to combat necropolitical violence, this paper illustrates the consequences of sex as an institution of power governing over gender, despite equal protections in Canadian law.