‘PREA is a joke’ is a direct quote from a study by the LGBTQ+ prison abolition society Black & Pink, who interviewed 1,100 currently incarcerated LGBTQ+ people about their experiences. The full quote reads, ‘I have been raped at nearly every level 5 camp in MO. PREA is a joke’ (Black & Pink, 2015, p. 43). PREA, the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003, was meant to protect incarcerated people from sexual assault by utilizing a systemic method of preventative procedures and reporting (United States, 2003). In 2012, the Department of Justice expanded PREA standards to include how correctional institutions should accommodate trans and intersex people currently incarcerated (PCI) regarding body searches, placement, access to gender-affirming items, and unique care needs (National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape, 2012). These new standards included a stipulation that if state Departments of Corrections (DOCs) are not compliant, they could lose 5 percent of funding from the Department of Justice (National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape, 2012). Thus, when utilizing these guidelines, trans people should be able to choose who searches them inside a facility, have access to hormones, bras, binders, and so forth, and be placed in facilities where they feel safe (National Standards to Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Prison Rape, 2012).

However, in practice, it has been found that many states do not follow these PREA guidelines and in fact repeatedly violate the rights supposedly guaranteed to trans PCIs. In Black & Pink's (2015) report, other PREA guidelines were found to have been specifically violated, as 44 percent of trans inmates were denied access to hormones, 31 percent were denied the chance to receive a medical diagnosis for gender dysphoria, and only 21 percent of trans folx were able to access gender-affirming underwear and/or cosmetic items. Further, in a 2020 report to track where trans PCIs are housed, ‘out of 4,890 transgender state prisoners in 45 states and Washington, D.C., only 15 cases in which a prisoner was housed according to their lived gender were confirmed’ (Sosin, 2020, para. 9). But this number is not entirely accurate, as seven states refused to disclose where trans PCIs were housed, and five states did not respond to requests for information (Sosin, 2020).