Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Welcome

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. We're flip the calendar. Is Tuesday, third. Good night. Yep. This is our 01:00 meeting. We're running a little late. We do have a full agenda this afternoon. But we're first gonna start on House Bill five forty. We've taken some testimony on this. It came from a post adjudication repairative program working group. Language was proposed unanimously by this working group to upgrade the language. It used to be around a reparative board. It is now a reparative program, and it just clarifies its operations. It gives the court a little bit more direction in terms of when to sentence a person through the reparative program. House Judiciary Committee took a look at it, heard testimony from the same folks that we did. We heard from DOC. We heard from Ledge Council. We also heard from Chief Justice Zone. Has been in support of this as was house judiciary, and they voted eight zero three. Is it eight zero three in support? They did not physically have the bill. They did what's called the drive by. So we are not proposing any amendments to it. It's the bill as it was introduced. So I would entertain a motion to vote out h five forty favorable. Motion to, vote out five forty eight two. I'll second it. Okay. It's been moved. Seconded. Is there any further discussion? If not, please call the Board. Representative Casey?

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Yes. Representative Galfetti?

[Gina Galfetti (Member)]: Yes.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Will Greer is absent. Representative Headrick? Yes. Representative Luneau? Yes.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Representative Minier?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yes, sir.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Morrissey?

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Yes.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Representative Winter? Yes. Representative Sweeney is a yes. Representative Gregoire? Yes.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: And? Chair, Emmons.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Do you forget Troy? I said You did. Yes.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Okay. So we have

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: +1 001.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: +1 001.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So Will offered to report the bill. Will's not here. It's not good practice to have the reporter of the bill be the one absent from voting on. So I'm gonna ask Troy to report the bill. Know I

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: think can

[Brian Minier (Member)]: handle that. Handle. I got it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: And there's a whole process to get this down to the clerk's office as well. So it's something

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I will do that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. Not you. It's the reporter. It's the reporter.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Oh, sorry. Sorry. But with this sometimes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Nigel comes to the door sometimes too in the afternoon and could say we have a bill who can take care of it too. Okay?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That means second We'll

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: be up on Thursday. We can get on notice today, be up on notice tomorrow and be up for action on Thursday. Okay, so we have a full afternoon. So we're gonna be talking for the next few hours on folks who have actually been incarcerated and have experience being incarcerated. Our 105 testimonies about gender equity within our correctional facility, folks who have been incarcerated in our facility. And then at 02:30, we have a person who has been working with some folks in the Springfield facility. Chris Willers is out of state. I think he's in Virginia, is it? Yeah. He's in Virginia. He was incarcerated for a number of years. And really, it was very kind of life changing while he was incarcerated, really realized that to use that time to change his perspective of things and really work through the emotions and the process of being incarcerated. And he's now in the community, and he's working with folks who are incarcerated in different states, and he is working with folks in the Springfield facility. And I participated in something down there back in December for the state treasurer, working with offenders, working with their finances. And Chris was on Zoom and really working with folks who were incarcerated at the Springfield facility. And I thought it would be good for members of the committee to hear from him of some first experience in terms of how he turned his life around. It felt like to be incarcerated the first fifteen years of his sentence, and then finally realizing it's not getting you anywhere with certain behaviors and

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: how you can what you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: can do to have a more positive impact, and then reentering into the community what's at stake and issues that arise from that. So we're going to be spending over the next couple of hours with folks who have experienced being incarcerated. So we have with us Kalani. Kalani? Kalani April Gagni. Gagni. Gagni. Gagni. It's French, Gagni. Formerly incarcerated, Burlington resident. And we do have a bill, age five fifty, that does deal with gender equity within our correctional facilities. And we did wanna hear from someone who was actually incarcerated in our facilities. Welcome. If you could come up to the hot seat, which is right in the front, and just take a deep breath. Have you testified before legislative committee before?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Definitely not.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: No. We

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: will not fight. We don't fight. Don't worry. Sweet.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: That's why you're seated way over there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: It did.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Well, sitting here. Usually, what

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: we do, you'll have to introduce yourself for the record. And usually, what we do, we just let the person testify, give information, and then there'll be questions and answers. So welcome. So if you could just identify yourself for the record.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: My name is Kalani Broganian, soon to be 60 years old, born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1966. So my journey through Department of Corrections starts like really when I was young. I mean, I've not always known since I can remember as a child, I was not in the right body. You know, I was not like my sisters, you know, and being in that timeframe, there really was no language for me to reach out to. I mean, my, my mother was very progressive, and she had had a gay uncle. She has some lesbian friends and stuff. So but I knew that wasn't me. So I had nowhere to look in regards to what was supposed to try to figure out, you know, what was going on. It was a very traumatic childhood with my mother. She was very, you know, authoritarian, like, siblings and I went through a lot and at the same time having multiple impostations from many different men. And so that shaped a lot of, like, my addiction to starting to drink at eight years old, and then morphed into drinking on weekends with my cousin, and then smoking marijuana by 12. And then every day from there on in, it's a daily high for anything. And then the reason I was incarcerated this time was I committed an aggravated assault, unlawful restraint, and I stole the motor vehicle. And I received a twenty five to forty year sentence all deferred but sixteen years.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was here in Vermont?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah, was in Rutland County.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Okay.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: And the town of Pittsford, Rutland County. So And I received a sentence of twenty five to forty years. And after I was sentenced, I was shipped out of state the next day, which was, I believe, Tuesdays, they did their transports back then.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So being shipped out of state, you were it was when which state did you go to? Was it Kentucky?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: The first state I went to was Kentucky.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Kentucky. So this is our out of state program. Yes. How many folks were shipped out at that point?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I think when I was in Kentucky, it was close to 300 at the time frame. That was about the ballpark figure that I remember. And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: what years was this?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I think I Kentucky in, like, 2010 until they closed that contract. Then I moved to Michigan, then to Pennsylvania, and then to Mississippi. Those are the four places I was out of state. And the overflux of the population when I identified the other way, was they sent you out of state. Whether you wanted to go was pretty much either volunteer or we're gonna send you anyway. That's what they give you. So I was shipped to Kentucky, and that's where it's very different there, I think, than it is in the Vermont state corrections in regards to they try to, like, I guess, give us things to babysit us. Like, you're out of state, so we'll let you have certain things like a PlayStation, Xbox, or a TV because you're so far from home. And Kentucky wasn't a bad facility. I mean, I thought Kentucky was okay. I mean, everything was good. I mean, I had employment there. I did cooking as a kosher cook. And I worked in maintenance. Then when we were shipped to Michigan, at the end of it is where, basically, like I told Troy is that it was either gonna live that as pertinent because it wasn't me. And so the decision was I'm gonna kill myself. I can't continue to live this way because the pain was too great.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So live this way in terms of your gender identity or being incarcerated?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Being the person I was born as. I could no longer live in that body. I could no longer live with that mind. It just was too stressful for me.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I just wanna clarify. So when you were in Kentucky, what identity did you have?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: When I was incarcerated, I was identifying as male.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: In Kentucky. Okay.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: In Kentucky. Okay. When in Michigan, I identified And

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: has enough.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Male. And then towards the end of our contract in Michigan is when I I come out to my caseworker with the Department of Corrections and the out of state caseworkers. Sure. Let them know that I identify. And the story for me is that I had enough drugs to kill myself. I had my razor blades, and I had a moose, and I was down. And I called my family members to say goodbye. And so my sister, my daughter was gonna be the last one, she was 13. And my sister, April, I called, you know, it was the last one before my daughter, and I had said goodbye. And she knew something was wrong because I don't use goodbye to people unless I mean goodbye. And so she goes, I know you're not gonna tell me what's going on, but I just remember I love you. And then I called my daughter, and she was going through something. And I could tell, and I said, well, just because I haven't been there for eight years, Olivia. I know you. You're part of my flesh and blood. And she said that she had told her mother something in regards to her being attracted to females. And I didn't care. And so I saw I was looking. I could see myself from the phone, And I knew what my feelings were. And it was like, what do I do? Do I save myself and my daughter? And so I said, well, if because I'm looking on this mental precipice of the abyss, I'm like, well, daddy's not good. You know? Transgender woman. And she was like, oh, great. That's awesome. I have transgender friends. And kinda like that was how Kalani was finally able to be Kalani because my daughter needed me, you know, and her mother didn't think her being attracted to women was appropriate or normal or, you know, the terminology she used is different, but so I needed to protect my daughter. And that's why I became me. And then that's when I told the state of Vermont, out of state caseworkers. And then it was really too soon to try to do anything in Michigan because we were leaving. So then we went to Pennsylvania. That is where you go and talk to a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist, a social worker, a general practitioner, and I presented them with how I identify. And they have a committee there and they sit down and they talk to you and they ask you questions and stuff. And then because of my history, working with psychiatrists on the street, I was granted HRT, which is human, you know, or hormone replacement therapy. Yep. And so that started that, and that's where it was. And Pennsylvania was not such a bad facility in regards to how I was able to deal with things there. They had once a week, they had all the transgender women from all the male facilities that would meet the video thing there. And you got to talk about things that were going on or issues that you'd see or things that you feel couldn't have better health care or better, like, you know, coverage as a transgender woman. And so that was really important for me to have that, you know, because it's nice to see other people, you know, and there's usually at least 40 to 50 trans women on that camera thing there.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So if you could also speak up a little bit because you know, that's because we have the machine. Okay. So So when you had the video, with that Vermont incarcerated folks? Or was it part of who we contracted out for that prison?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Well, the slippery slope of Pennsylvania was is we were actually interstate compacted every one of us. So we were not technically Vermont inmates anymore.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So you were on the interstate compact? Yes. Just were so you on the interstate compact in Kentucky and Michigan as well?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: No. Vermont had a controlling contract. They had to follow Vermont DOC guidelines. And but Michigan as well and Mississippi as well, but not Pennsylvania because we were literally all of us interstate compacted, which gave state of Pennsylvania as if we committed our crime in the state of Pennsylvania. So they had control over us, you know. And at times, they did refuse DOC to come in and see us because they had that authority to do that because they're technically weren't there weren't there inmates. And so that was kind of interesting.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Is that a state prison? Pennsylvania state prison?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: A pill. It's actually

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was state run.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: That was state run.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the videos that you were having were within the state of Pennsylvania? All

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: their male facilities that had transgender women. Yes.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So the caseworker that you were working with at that time, was that a Vermont caseworker? It was with Pennsylvania.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Pennsylvania. It was all Pennsylvania.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we were paying we were paying the state of Pennsylvania to house you folks, to house everyone. How many how many Vermont inmates were down there?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I wanna say to the best of my recollection, maybe a 185. I think it was the shit we're interstate combat, right around that figure.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So when when you were I just wanna get this clear. So when you were in Pennsylvania is when you started to identify as a woman, and that's when you brought that before the caseworker Yep. Which would have been a Pennsylvania employee. Yes. And they're the ones that started the treatments.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yes. Correct.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So you did identify in Michigan?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I did identify at the end in Michigan. Yeah. It was just not really feasible to try to work with them. They had a hard time always having a mental health provider there. So it really was very difficult, but it was like the last couple of months right around there. And then I just felt it would be best just to wait until I got to Pennsylvania.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: This is sort of just a language question, but the notion of identifying, it seems like you had identified that way for much longer. So when you're using it now, you're saying to have identified publicly to the folks at the facility. Right? Yeah.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I mean, I've always, in my own way, identified as a woman. Like, at times, I actually had a separate apartment where I could go and be this woman because nobody knew. Nobody in my family knew. My ex wife did not know. So this was the way for me to have some kind of an outlet for my mental health

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: To be okay. And so yeah. So I'll

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I Yeah. Just wanna be clear. This wasn't something new. Right? It's just No. Hey. Gonna be going

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: to you in Michigan

[Brian Minier (Member)]: or to you in Pennsylvania. Yeah.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It was I had to do that to work.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So continue on. You're in Pennsylvania.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I'm in Pennsylvania. So there's that process that goes on. And in the state of Pennsylvania, they have, like, a specific guideline that you go by. Like, you need to have all, like, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a therapist, but they have to have gender dysphoria, extensive gender dysphoria knowledge as well as working with trans individuals, because there could be underlying co occurring mental health issues. You know, it could be suicidal idealization. It could be depression. It could be anxiety. There could be a multitude of different reasons that a person could feel that way, but properly worked with, seeing if that is. And that's why, to me, that is a process that is very important because the the hormones you get can be detrimental to you, you know, in regards to changing you. And so although late, the people I worked with there in Pennsylvania gave great care. I I met with a psychiatrist once every two weeks, I met with a caseworker once a week. And so I had regular contact with them in regards to my treatment at all times. And so then when we got to Mississippi, it's a vastly different story. Basically, I have a hard time with self identifying. I'll get to that later because of the abuses, I feel, that are there. And so in Mississippi, they had no problem showing their disgust for who I was as a human being.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So was that other offenders that were there, or was it staff?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It was a staff.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because that's with CoreCivic.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yes. Literally, the unit manager at 1.1 incident in Mississippi is the unit manager continued to put sex offenders, predators in my cell. And, even though Vermont Department of Corrections said you can't do that, And the last person that they had put in there was a serial rapist with convictions and multiple sexual assaults against inmates in jail. And the unit manager had told the CO to not move that person, and that person better be in my cell, and she came back on Tuesday. Now it was Thursday because I worked three days, have two off, that schedule. So she called a captain of the facility and was very concerned for my safety, and he came down and removed that individual from my cell. And so on Tuesday, the unit manager called me in there, and her words verbatim were, I hate effing white people in your kind. And I said, well, I'm white, so that's not my kind. I said, is it because I'm Jewish or a trans woman? And she goes, all three. And I said and I was a smart ass. I said, well, if I'd known that, I would have bought a ticket because I hit the trifecta, you know? And she very vulgarly told me to leave her office. They did not follow protocol of proper searches. They had males searching. At one point, there was a major shakedown and I was in my cell, and they were supposed to have a female strip search me. Instead, there came three people, three men to my cell door, and one gentleman entered into my cell, which is illegal to do. And I don't know if you've ever seen a cell, there's not much room to go. So the way this cell was is you walked in like this, and the bunk was against the back wall. So I backed against the bunk, which is about three feet sticking from the wall. He came in within at least two feet of me and told me to strip. And I stripped and he looked me up and down and started to laugh. And the other two COs laughed as well. And that is the experience continually in Mississippi. There was no respect for me as a human being or any dignity, and it was very hard there. That's the way it was, being told I'm an abomination to God, that Satan is my father, that I don't deserve to live. I mean, very and this is stat.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: So when you're at a state, like we hear, and it might have changed since, that the Vermont inmates are kept completely separately from the other inmate populations. But I'm wondering if your experience just in the different states that worked every place.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Kentucky, at one point prior to my there, the Vermonters and Kentucky people didn't integrate together. They did mingle. In Michigan, there was nobody else there but us. In Pennsylvania, I literally was housed in the unit with all PA, pretty much 98% Pennsylvania inmates. Mississippi, we mingled with, they had the Virgin Islands, they had Wyoming, and they had South Carolina. We couldn't mix with the U. Marshals people there, because that's that's well, I think those other three places we did, we worked in the kitchen with them, we went to rec with them At one point before that all changed, I think COVID is what changed that. But prior to that, yes, you intermingled with them.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Did you also have the same living areas with them? Or was the

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Vermont No, we had separate dorms. Separate dorms for Vermont. Vermont and Mississippi at the time I was there was housed in M Building, which is three units inside the building.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: How long were you in Mississippi?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I got there in October 2018, and I was there until 03/21/2022. And, that's when I got shipped back from Mississippi. And then I first had gone to Springfield and then eventually to CRCF.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: While were you in Springfield, was that just a transition when you came back in?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah. Because there was a COVID outbreak. Right. So they weren't taking anybody in the facility.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Springfield's used as a hub for people to come and go.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah. Yep. Yep. And so at one point, probably the worst experience I had in Mississippi was I found out in Mississippi, my oldest sister April was diagnosed with signet ring cell, which they gave her about a ten percent chance of survival. I begged DOC to take me back to sibling. They refused. Said basically, my words I use, the way I got from them is I don't have a right to be there. So I was charged, convicted, consented in the state of Vermont. And I was a Vermont attorney since I was about five years old or Vermont residency is about five years of age. So three days after she died is when the sexual assault started against me, being brutally, savagely beating till I was knocked out many times because I would fight. To where I shoulder surgeries due to this to protect myself. I could see rotator cuff replacement with no lifting or movement time anymore. And I had to have this arm repaired shoulder as well. The out of state caseworkers knew what was going on. Other people, incarcerated individuals told them what was going on. My niece, who was a fierce advocate for me, was in close contact to one of the out of state caseworkers and told them his app. And they would come down some of these out of state caseworkers, and they would see my face beat into a pulp and say, Oh, you slipped in the shower again. So at that point, you really feel like you're not a human being anymore. And so that was very hard to deal with, you know, and all through this for me, like, I'd finally gotten to be drug free after forty six years of addiction. You know, I was sober. And it was it didn't matter that this was going on and all these things. They have court court cases that I have still against Vermont DLC. Prisoners' rights knew. I wrote a 27 page letter to one of the prisoners' rights person and documenting things to them. Nicholas Demo, when I agreed to what was going on, never answered any of my grievances. So I was really felt like there was nobody there for me. That was my experience in the Department of Corrections. I mean, I had no amendment rights. I'm pretty sure that goes against the eighth amendment of cruel and unequal punishment. But that seemed to be what it was. And it wasn't just me that had problems. There was other people who had problems as well. You know? But from my experience, what I experienced in Mississippi, it was very traumatic. You know, there's nobody there. One of my only ways to really cope with things was to cut. Like, was a cutter. That's the only way I could feel good. It's the only way I could try to take the pain away, because I wasn't doing drugs anymore. And I didn't know how I was gonna make it, but I knew somehow I would, you know, and everybody knowing what's going on. Vermont, property corrections did not. There was no investigation into what happened to me by Michigan or by, excuse me, Mississippi. There was no thing that they put on them to make them do a report. They didn't report it to the local sheriff, the state police, or the the the town police in that area. So there was no protection for me at all. There was nobody to turn to to help me. And this is the sea of things between sending faxes to the out of state caseworkers, to the things that are going on to other people when they came down, telling them what's going on with me, as well as seeing the appease that's going on with me. At one point, the unit manager put this person back in the same cell or in the same unit, excuse me. And this was during COVID, so there was an upper tier came out by themselves, lower tier came out by themselves. So she put the person on the upper tier so that they would always be out when I was out. And I reached out to Vermont Department of Corrections, and they did not force Mississippi's hand into removing that individual. It's only by his actions in regards to behaviors that he went back to segregation. But there was no immediate means to take this person out of there. And it got concerning to me. You know, as you are the Department of Corrections, in the way I view you, you are in a sense my mother and father. You You are there to give me the protection that you allot anybody else. And to not have that and to be treated as less than human is really hard to do it. You know, it really breaks you down, your psyche. And if it wasn't for only one person out of every single person that decided to not take no that I'm okay is when that stopped, you know, and that was all it was for me. That was it. Then everything kind of ended there. That person in a sense, an inmate had to protect me with no, you gotta do this, you have to do that, just strictly the respect that he had living in another living across in the other housing unit, and I'm separate from this person. Still the respect that that person had of not to touch me or to to hurt me or mess with me anymore.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was down in Mississippi.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah. Yeah. And so then that's pretty much a lot of the stuff that happened to me in Mississippi. It was very difficult because, you know, I got to a point where I couldn't even defend myself because of my injuries. So that's another whole area of what you deal with mentally, emotionally, psychologically, feeling like things that you feel like it's your fault. Because if you did, you'd fight, but I couldn't anymore because my shoulders just weren't there. Now at one point, it took three days before I could actually move this shoulder again. I thought I'd sworn any last ligament. But then I came back to Vermont. And my experience in Springfield was generally okay. When I first got there, I'd gone to the CO and told them, like, I really, you know, can't be in a cell with somebody because I'd lived for, like, about the last four years in a single about three plus years in a single cell after they finally got situated in Mississippi. And I went down and told them these and I was like, I'm supposed to be housed in a single cell. And that's what the Department of Corrections, and out of state caseworkers had told me that would happen when I came back to Vermont. And so when I was in the male facilities and there was a very nice correctional officer. I'm not sure what unit it was in, but he called the supervisor, and the supervisor's like, well, you know, go to segregation and protect it. You got a PC. And the person was like, no. Like, she's not saying she's afraid. She's just uncomfortable to be in a cell with somebody she doesn't know. And so that night, I just sat up all in. I couldn't fall asleep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Were you in a cell, or were you still in booking?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Excuse me? Were you

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: in a cell, or were you still in booking here?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: No. I this is after I got sent down back to to the housing. I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: To the housing units.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Think it might have been Gina G H I. I think that's how it goes in Springfield. And so I think it was Gina, and a lot of them were workers, kitchen workers at the time or other workers. And I mean, so I just stayed up all night because I didn't know this person above me, you know. And then the next day they moved me over to, I believe it was Bravo, where they're single cells. And that's where I stayed until I went to Chittenden. Inbound. For a transgender woman, you know, I identify as a woman. To me, I'm just a woman. Society wants to label me with a name. I'm just a woman. Just like any other woman. And I use she her pronouns. Within two minutes of being in Chittenden, I was misgendered three times. Is a By

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: staff or Staff.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: No, by staff. The CO that was taking me in, there was a s one. I only found out by asking him, I'm like, excuse me. Do you hear this? I go, what is your title here? And out of state, there's wardens, assistant wardens, captains, lieutenants, and sergeants. And Vermont is vastly different. So he was what they call, I guess, an s one. And he was like, I don't hear anything. And that's how it kind of started for me there. Even in Springfield, even in Mississippi, the brutality I survived, they never once misgendered me. One time. They always used to sheher pronouns. Springfield was the same respect that used sheher pronouns. And within three minutes of being delivered to them on a late Tuesday evening, I was misgendered three times.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At Chittenden.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Up at Chittenden. And that's commonplace at Chittenden with some COs. It was commonplace to misgender you. At one point, I complained to that's right, assist an assistant superintendent, and the person heads up, well, Kalani, you do have a deep voice. And people do make mistakes. But to me is, okay. What facility house are here? Women. No male inmate goes there. Even if they're arrested in South Burlington, they do not step foot in CRCF. They go to where I don't know if it'd be New York or Saint Albans. Okay? So it was it was a I knew I was safe from sexual assault. I felt like I'd be safe from sexual assault. I knew there'd be a different style of, I guess, attacks, more mental, psychological, or things like that. But they did respect there with, male officers were not allowed to pat you down. They do not give you strip searches. It was obviously the females that did that. To where it's still a toxic environment, you know, in regards to the treatment, I feel that I received there. It wasn't until I got to Chittenden that I was able to finally, through the Divas program, actually start an investigation on what happened to me in Mississippi. So this was close to almost two years later, plus years later, that finally something was able to be looked into because of that program that they have there, which was very helpful for me, therapeutic, you know, to be able to have somebody to stand by you and to help you. And they my problem this brings me to my problem in regards to self identifying. And that process, I think, is very detrimental and very dangerous. And it's a slippery slope that the Vermont Department of Corrections, at least, is going down, I feel. Because Department of Corrections staff and administration, your job and knowledge is safety, security and the running of an institution. Unless maybe you were a psychiatrist and had worked in that field. I don't know. But the determination of who should have treatment, like I've found many different states, you know, the Federal Bureau of Prison, you know, that is one of the things that you need, the guidelines that they have, a licensed psychiatrist, social worker, therapist, psychologist, you know, some some using an endocrinologist, I think, okay. And they all work together to make the determination who, you know, especially when it comes to housing. That is very key. I saw a lot of abuse at Chittenden with people who I don't know how they got there. It's not my knowledge to know. But that truly used and abused their things. I had three people individually that allegedly identified to DFC as a woman, and specifically had told me that the only reason they came there was to do all these things they could before they got kicked out. That's dangerous to cisgender women. Deserve to be protected. Transgender individuals deserve to be protected, but cisgender women deserve to be protected as well. And like my views and my thoughts as to like thread the needle of California, which that lawsuit was tossed out, the SB one thirty two bill, that in 2001, but it took place, I think, in 2001, that it was enacted to allow transgenders to petition to go to female facilities. And so if you have this strict guideline and a policy and a procedure set in place by Vermont Department of Corrections, that this is the protocol you go through in order to be determined, because there's so many other factors that you have to take in place. Their violent history on the street, whether they've been convicted of domestic domestic abuse, whether they've been convicted of rape, whether they've been convicted of child molestation, or any other sexual types of crimes. These are things that really should be seriously weighed upon by people who truly know about that type of behavior. It's one thing to have somebody in the CO and think you know the behavior, but you don't know the pathology, or you don't know the psychology of the mice. And I think that's very important because then therefore you give cisgender women that feeling of security if there's this deep vetting process, and that you have to go through these licensed not just licensed professionals, which is the terminology that they use right now in the current policy. Okay, a well path nurse sorry, I've educated a lot of these nurses and my care providers in regards to who I am. As they're like, I'm gonna look up on the Mayo Clinic and find out what to so obviously, you don't have a proper knowledge of who I am. There was not psychiatrists I spoke to inside Chittenden that had any real knowledge of gender dysphoria or working with transgender individuals other than what came to Chittenden. The mental health providers that I worked with, I educated them in regards to gender dysphoria and transgenders. This is key to helping people, because once again, to go back on that co occurring mental health illnesses that could show that this is what's going on, but when we really get to the root of something, it's something completely different. And that's not being done right. One incident, there's a gentleman who self identified as a woman, was put in the same cell with me up in House 2, upstairs, House 2 in Chittenden and literally looked like the spitting image of one of the men that raped me. Sorry, I didn't hear. Looked like the spitting what? Spitting image of the man one of the men that raped me in Mississippi. And I went to the staff, the administration, and they refused to either move him or me. This person would act in a very masculine manner, taken off their shirt, walking around like that, would go out into the day day room and, as I would say, peacock themselves in regards to the women. And CO would sit right there, and I would go up and be like, are you not gonna say something to this person? This is such inappropriate behavior. And I didn't sleep for close to sixty hours because that person was in that cell. I could not fall asleep. I just sat against the back wall until I could go to work in the kitchen. It wasn't until the chief of security aide come back from wherever that actually moved me out of that cell because he realized the person that I mentioned that did this to me in the similarities of the person's looks. And when I brought it to the assistant superintendent, I was sitting across the desk like this, and he literally went like this and said, Kalani, you do realize that's not the man that raped you. And I politely said, I didn't know you had a degree psychology or that you were knowledgeable in PTSD. And I got up and left. But that's the treatment that I received there. And if it wasn't for the chief of security, who was a very admirable man and was, to me, one of my, like, strongest allies, I felt there, that I felt safe, you know? And if it wasn't for that I know. What could have happened mentally, just mentally to me, not even physically, but mentally? And seeing the abuse of people repeatedly, repeatedly I don't know what the Department of Corrections is supposed to report to you. But I I was under the understanding that all PREAs are to be reported. All assaults are to be reported. All physical assaults are to be reported. I'm curious to see some of these individuals that I know of one individual when I was there alone that probably had at least should have had at least two to three dozen prius against them in the time frame, two years and three months that I was there. And I don't know prior to my coming there. And there's other ones that repeatedly had been caught doing inappropriate behavior and engaging in acts that they're not supposed to. And yet they were not dealt with other than you go to the box, then you come back out. Sometimes they generally put me in a different housing unit. But that was the environment at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility that I witnessed firsthand. To me, it's a very slippery slope in the Vermont Department of Corrections with the way I see their policy now, because I feel it's more detrimental to the transgender community. You know, I think it's not really holding great weight to how you view transgender individuals by just allowing people to simply say, this is who I am. Okay, you're going to female. So what about the females? What about the cisgender women having the right to be protected? So I have a hard time with that. I I've written some things down that I'd like to share with this committee. And, like, one of the things I think I sent this to Tate as well, like, the key provisions for me in this bill is a professional vetting, licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, therapist with transgender care expertise as well as gender dysphoria, enhanced review for individuals with histories of violence, sexual misconduct, rape, and or sexual molestation. For me, tadamount is a zero tolerance policy. If you are a transgender woman and you go to Chittenden Regional Correction Facility because they allow you to, I don't feel like you should be given a chance. Again, it should be that's what Prius seems to be, a zero tolerance policy. You made a mistake. Sorry. We understand, but you're gonna go back because we need to protect the population. So that's really, you know, very important to me. There needs to be an oversight board on this with corrections, you know, involving the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, women's rights advocate group, somebody from one of the groups to be an advocate, an LGBT, you know, representative to ensure that there is going to be accountability for the offender who did this and as well as holding DOC accountable for what are you gonna do, and how many times does it take before you begin to protect the vulnerable population. And leads me to which is why? Because cisgender women a lot of cisgender women that are housed at the Chittenden Correctional Facility are women of domestic abuse, trafficking. They've been told to do things for sex. They've been abused. They've been victimized. So you're already dealing with a population that is at a higher risk as it is. And when you have that type of environment, and I speak personally through the the abuse, like, it's hard not to sometimes associate that this person is trying to manipulate you. So I think that's why we're it's really important to have those people who are professionals to to do that, you know, and, you know, like in the paddock, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, they have an actual specialized committee, whereas typically six medical experts, you know, you first go to the psychology department and you identify as a woman. Then there are guidelines, which most of the states that I will quote from use WPATH, which is World Professional Association for Transgender Health. They use a lot of their guidelines. And the California, that's a medical evaluation by mental health staff adhering to clinical guidelines from WPATH. You know, the specialized care they work with mental health providers as well as the general practitioner. Not that a general practitioner doesn't know medicine, but what is their real experience working with transgender individuals or being able to diagnose them. As you can imagine, I did sixteen years, so times have changed. Prior to that, on the street, you went to a psychiatrist. My I would have went to my doctor and said, I identified the woman. Go see the psychiatrist. I sit down with them, and they would have said, okay, you're gonna live as a woman, identify as a woman in society, come back, and then we'll discuss HRT. And then once you come back, you've done everything, you're continuing to see psychiatrists or psychologists or licensed therapists throughout this time. And then you would get the hormone replacement. And then it would be at least another one to two years before they would even consider any kind of surgery, meaning bottom surgery, or vagioplasty, as they call it. And now this whole confusion to me of self identifying kind of takes away and strips away all that where there is professional people to vet properly. There is in New York, you know, it's a licensed mental health profession, psychiatrist, psychologist that receives this and gives the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. And to get any other treatment, you have to have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to begin HRT. And again, New York also uses WPATH as one of their guidelines to go by. In Ohio, Arizona, California. They use mental health providers to give that diagnosis before they will start HRT or any type of therapy. And certainly that is the guideline, and a lot of these people use WPATH in regards to looking at things or federal guidelines in some cases. And that is, I feel, like how you thread that needle of the balance of cisgender women feeling safe and because you have this not that things still can't fall through the crack because we know they can. But I think you have a better handle on protecting the cisgender population and allowing transgender to be as safe as also. There is some prisons that have transgender housing units. It's a voluntary unit, you're not put there because you're transgender. But if you feel victimized or not safe, they actually have a transgender housing unit that you can go to. These are all things to help protect not only transgender individuals, but cisgender population. You have people who are continually mis misusing the system, then you could be specifically put in a transgender housing unit. I don't know how any of this works. These are just, I think, for me, that's what I would like to see added to the policy, that it needs to be licensed professionals, meaning the psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, therapist with extensive knowledge of dysphoria or transgender working with transgender demons. Those are the ones who should make the determination, a, for the therapy, as well as if you get to go to a housing unit, a female facility. Because I think that they're the ones who have a better knowledge of what's going on, and can look for things like that, you know. Like in Pennsylvania, there was two inmates that were denied treatment that were from Vermont because they didn't deny that they were women. They felt that they had other co occurring mental illness, and they felt that they were confused, that they were not going to give them treatment. And they were told that you need to live in the population, identify as a woman, and we will readdress this later. And when they got to Mississippi, because they went to the out of state caseworkers. They were basically, like, just give them their meds.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I didn't hear that. When they got to Mississippi

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: When they went to Mississippi from Pennsylvania after being denied the treatment because of the the psychiatrist, psychologist, who that worked with them felt like they were confused, that they needed to, like, live like this for a while. When we went to Mississippi, they had complained to out of state caseworkers, and the out of state caseworkers pretty much had just said, let them have their medication. And they were so like, you didn't even follow a guideline of what was given by people who really had a broad knowledge of what was going on. So that's my concern. My biggest concern is the self identifying, using that to get what you want through perverse needs and acting inappropriately. And I feel that the Department of Corrections is not properly vetting people. And when there is issues, they're not addressing that as soon as they should. You know? And I don't that's what I really feel, like, Jack, why that isn't why that is important to me to have in the policy that it really needs to read out. I don't know law. I don't know any of these things. They're just my suggestions that I feel, you know, that Department of Corrections could do to better inform themselves, to better help people, you know, to protect all people transgender and cisgender and and to see that. You know? I mean, you have the opportunity with a new facility possibly being built to make great changes in regards to this type of stuff. So, yeah, for me, my due diligence with the policy that I'd like to see is that those things added as like

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: For it to be comprehensive.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: For it to be comprehensive and to to have that comprehensive overview of a proper policy. And I don't like hearing things like, well, why doesn't Vermont just take the lead? Why doesn't Vermont be that person to be like, hey, this is the guidelines that we really are gonna implement. This is what really needs to be done. Why don't you separate ways? Why don't you set precedent? Why don't you do that? You know, and I think it'd be vastly different. Be vastly different. I think I felt it was very inappropriate that I don't feel from my knowledge that cisgender women really had a knowledge of what was going on in regards to these people coming here. You know, I volunteered with the superintendent at the time to do in services in the way that guards interact with transgender women, what it feels like to be misgendered, what and these things and was told, well, no inmate will give an in service to my staff. And, okay, then please educate them. You know? So I don't know what they go through any of these things, But I think this is, to me, a good start to be included in this bill that I really feel. And like I said, I can't answer to localities. I I'm just a person that has, I feel, some solutions to help the Vermont Department of Corrections to be better, you know, and they're not all bad. I mean, I've had some very good experiences. I've had, like I said, the chief of security at Chittenden was an amazing man that really, I felt like was an ally, I could go to this person in regards to anything. There was a few COs that I could talk to in regards to that. And so it was nice, you know. There's no accountability to this gender population in regards to what they do. And it still falls under guidelines of there are write ups in regards to, like, how you talk about my body, how you talk about my body parts, how you say things about me. And, yeah, in regards to certain behaviors. One person had attacked me verbally and talked about my body parts and had called me degrading names in regards to if you were just gay or other terms, then why don't you just stay a man? And when I brought that up, they did nothing. The person that came to investigate it is literally how it went. The officer came to me in the kitchen and said, do you know why I'm here? I'm like, probably to, you know, talking about the grievance. And he's like, well, first of all, it's not a PREA. Second of all, I have a really good relationship with this person. And third, they felt if anybody could get this person to be honest, it would be me. And I just looked at him and said, well, that's three red flags. Have a good day. And I just walked out of the office. And it wasn't until the federal Prix lady had come that year in 2022, when I reported what happened that that person received a Prix. So DOC was not even gonna give that person a Prix. They told me it was not a Prix. But the federal PREA lady said, well, no, it is. So they might not know the policy. They might not know what PREA really is. I don't know. But that way, if you have an oversight committee, you can see these things. It's gonna help DOC to make them better for everybody. And I think that's the bridge of making everybody feel comfortable. You know?

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, thank this is giving us a lot of information.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Told you all she had some things. Yeah. Did

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: you feel when you were in Chittenden that you've been in facilities. I mean, were three, four out of state facilities in that region. Was there a different culture in each facility?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I think yeah. I mean, Kentucky was Kentucky because where we're at. I mean, I know I mentioned this to Troy. The only reason out of Vermonters love being out of state is you can have a PlayStation. You can have a TV. You can have an Xbox. You can have an m p three player. And to be quite frank and honest, the amount of drugs that you can get, you can I stayed high for eleven and a half years of my incarceration every single day? There was these are for profit prisons traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Okay? So there's Kentucky, they were making $8 an hour. If you offer a CO $1,000 to bring in a package of drugs, that's basically you know, almost a month's worth of pay to them. At $8 an hour, that's $320 a week times four, that's $12.80, minus taxes, probably pretty close to what they make in a month. And that's that's the way it was in Michigan. That's the way it was in Kentucky, and that's the way it was in Mississippi. Pennsylvania was different. There were still a lot of drugs around. But I even tried to work with because I was concerned with the meth the meth that they were getting down there. The drugs were really bad in Mississippi. And because they utilized the legal mal system, they you know, it it's just bad all the way around. That's why Vermonters love being out of state, myself included, because I well, I could say hi. You know? And it was only through Kalani being able to be Kalani, who she's truly been since she was born, was to be me. And when I became me, the moment I told my daughter, like, so much hatred and rage and anger towards the world left me because I was me now. It didn't matter anymore. Didn't know how I was gonna make it coming out in another eight years to go in my prison sentence, but I was okay. And everything that happened to me was tragic, but it was okay because I was Kalani. And I think that's important for people to know, like what that does for you when you're finally able to be who you truly are.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Mr. Gerica, thanks so much for coming in. First of all, it's a perspective we don't often hear. I think it's really important as we're marking up bills and everything to get the story behind the words there. So I really appreciate it. You're confirming so much of the anecdotal information we've heard about out of state prisons there. One thing I've heard is you might see like gang activity down there that essentially gets imported to Vermont if somebody feels like they're in a position to join a gang. Might have been more Kentucky than Mississippi, but I don't know if you've seen anything like

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I didn't really see much gang activity out of state for me, really. Those who self identified as bloods or crips. But there really isn't that mentality of that. You know? So I've never seen, like, a gang activity out of state. I mean, I didn't even see it in Pennsylvania, a gang. And that's what it was over a 3,000 bed facility. Yeah. You went to the yard, there could be, like, 400 people in the yard with you, you know, when it's the main yard. So I never witnessed any of that at myself, any gang activity at all. You know? And were there gang members that have been arrested and incarcerated in the Department of Corrections? Of course. I knew gang members that were truly from, like, New York City and the and the boroughs that were either crip or blood. But as for this activity and them having this great turmoil between each other, it wasn't because they're such a small minority that the blood trip doesn't matter in in jail for them because it's not like they're living in New York City prisons or other institutions that are very, very gang related. Vermont, to me, I don't see where where I've been housed has, like, this strong gang presence.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: That's one good thing, James. About like connections folks would make out of state that might result in drug trafficking later on across state lines from other states?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Mean, I know there is people that there's people like I did time with that were from Tennessee. They were from Queens or Manhattan or Brooklyn or other places in New York City. People felt they were from Pennsylvania. And there is people that do make connections. I don't know what they do in regards to that. But you do get to meet people. I mean, there's one person from Pennsylvania that was, you know, is a Jewish guy that I used go to the the services with on Shabbat services. And I do reach out to him once in a while. He's still incarcerated just to let him know. You know? Because at the very end, know, Pennsylvania, like, you know, I'd said to him, he's like, ask me something about being different. And I was like, well, you know, I don't know. Just to let you know, I'm a woman. And he just thought that was so profound. And so, like, we made that connection of strength, you know, and because he was gay. I think there was that strength of unity and connection. So I don't know about the others. Could they possibly do that? I'm sure. That's speculative on my behalf.

[Joseph "Joe" Luneau (Member)]: Fair enough. Thanks so much.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: You're welcome.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: So

[Brian Minier (Member)]: is that Friday?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Sorry.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: To understand because there are different levels to this obviously. So one of them is, yes, let's look at the law. Let's look at how people are placed. But part of this is also culture, right? It's training. So I'm trying to understand when you return to Vermont, there was this period in Springfield and you've only seen whatever you've seen. So is there a way to compare or contrast facilities? Do you get the feeling this is happening as badly as you described in CRCF because there's this notion of protecting women? What in the the end of the culture, the training, the the DOC I

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: think DOC needs more training. I really I generally do. I think it's not just DOC. It's the world in general. You know, like, you know, the president of this country wipes away my rights. I don't exist to him. I'm I'm either male or female. I'm not. So, like, you with a stroke of a pen, you wipe away my rights, and I'm not a human being anymore. So I think it's, like, not just DOC, but this is what we're talking about, is I think DOC needs more in services. They need more education. And why not bring someone like me who's been out for close to eighteen months? And I've worked on a project interviewing incarcerated individuals. I'm gonna present to the community, you know, to work with other places to make it better for all individuals. Like, one of my Hebrew name my Hebrew name is, meaning, colonic Kulanu, daughter of Abraham and Sarah. Colony is the Israeli state flower. It's in the poppley family. It's bright red, and it's illegal to touch and pick to pick it, I mean. Excuse me. That's how I feel in society now. I didn't get the protection while I was in there, but I know where to go to get protection out here. And I am protected. And means all. It's not just about me. It's not just about trans rights. It's about everybody's rights. Cisgenders, transgenders, everybody's feeling okay. Non binary. You know, I'm still learning some stuff in regards to, like, that community because it's not my knowledge. I identify as I identify. But I think they're easy that why not bring somebody like me back in to help the CEOs or to educate the CEOs? I think that's like what I would say crossing the aisle of working together to make it better. You know? I mean, I have a lot of, I feel like, views that I feel are solutions. You know? We all know the problems. I want the solutions. I wanna work on the solutions. Like, I feel like I hope I gave some solutions today to this committee to to look at. You know? I really hope that I did because it's important. It's important to me. This is who I am. This is colonial. This is me. This is a passion that I feel needs to really be addressed. Kevin

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: and then Shawn.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It saddens me to hear the abuse that apparently you have gone through. And I'm very happy that it sounds like you're also satisfied with who you are now. I'm having a hard time following the history. What I think you told me is that when you got to Pennsylvania, you were able to identify to the people in charge and you started the hormone replacement therapy. Were you in the ladies facilities from that point on? Or were you sometimes in men's facilities after Pennsylvania?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Well, I first identified to Vermont in Michigan. That's where I first identified and came out as a trans person, was in Michigan.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And you were housed where? In the men's facility?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: In the men's facility. Every facility was men's except for Chittenden Regional. So all my facilities, even after I came out as a transgender woman and identified through who I've always been, I was still housed in the male facilities. I don't I oh, that's one thing I did forget. Thank you for bringing that up. I don't feel any transgender individual should be sent out of state. Cannot believe that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah. I can imagine that. And I I don't mean to cut you up, but I'm I'm really having a hard so you've been in male facilities your entire time as you were incarcerated?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Up until the last two years and three months of my incarceration, when I came back to Vermont, and then they housed me in Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, which is a female facility. So yes, until that time I was housed entirely in male populations.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And you began the therapy in Pennsylvania, which was how many years ago, roughly?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Before I started treatment, I'd say it's got to be close to at least nine years. Nine plus years, right around there.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And I hope you hear my heart. Have you fully transitioned?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: In regards to

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Are you physically? Surgically? I

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: have breasts that are natural that I developed through the hormone replacement therapy. No, I have not had that surgery yet. I do intend to have it, yes. That's who I am, I'm a woman.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: It's a matter of timing and funds or

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It's what's following the guideline that the world has for you to transition into a full, complete

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: woman for me. Proceeding as quickly as you can through the system.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: You're on a waiting list. There's a long waiting list. So yeah.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: But until you got to Vermont, you were housed with vets.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yes. Correct.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Thank you. We do not ship women out of state. We only ship men. So that would be a question of us to ask DOC. We know that we had a person, a fender who's being housed in one of the at a state facility, now it's Mississippi, that is trans. Why to a woman? Why are we not bringing the person?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: At least in Vermont. At least in Vermont, even if it's a male Vermont facility. Right. At

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: least Yeah. That's the question we need to ask you. Mississippi

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: is not a place for a transgender person. No. Their views are very

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Even out on the street.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It's very detrimental. On even on the street. Yes. It's very exactly.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Shawn and Brian.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Connie, thank you so much. Your courage is is is amazing that you've been able to go through what you've gone through. And the fact that you want to go back and teach, if I was in charge, would give you the positions to do just that and to set up a clinic, maybe at CRCF, to start there, because I think you have that energy and that foresight and what you've gone through in your life to share. And just going back to teach, the fact that you want to go back in there to teach means a tremendous amount to me, and I just needed to say that. So I will do what I can with Troy to help

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: maybe make that happen. Thank you. Appreciate the kindness. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Brian?

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So I guess it's half comments and half question if you want or not, if you don't. But when you're answering Kevin's questions, there's this The personal process is taking some time. Are steps Is that comparable to what is being suggested with WPATH and the sort of This is this deliberate procedure for figuring out what happens. I don't know, think there's a perception that it's just sort of like, that's how it happens. And it doesn't sound like the process that's being proposed for categorizing people is

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Like a surgery. You say you want the surgery and you get the surgery. Still, that protocol with the surgeon would be performing, that would be like, how long have they identified? How long have they actually lived as this woman? How long have they been on the formal replacement therapy? That would be, that's going to be the surgeon. So it wouldn't matter what was said, you know, it's the surgeon and who they work with, which around here would be Dartmouth Hitchcock, and their process of and then you go to you need two letters of recommendation for that. So I've already done that

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: process. Yes. Correct.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: I don't want to put words. I want to propose this, and you can correct me if it's not accurate. I think what you're proposing, and certainly what I intend with this legislation, is to leave this to the professionals, that every journey is going be different. And as long as we encircle these individuals who are looking for this sort of care with people who can provide that care, we can defer to the professionals to make those decisions. Does that feel?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I feel 100%. Like I said, I don't know policies. I don't know these things. I just know what I wanted to present.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: And and it is. It's up to the professionals. And that's where it really should be, which is I can't say it enough to be so redundant of licensed psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, specifically who have worked with transgender individuals as well as an extensive knowledge of gender dysphoria. You know, I think that's important. Yeah. And that is up to that process. So no. Definitely. James. Thank

[Brian Minier (Member)]: you for coming.

[James Gregoire (Vice Chair)]: Very compelling. Hard to hear sometimes, the challenges of, you know, I like the pragmatism in your approach, know, it is hard I'm sure to be that way. So I just want to thank you for coming and giving us this information that I think is valuable. And yeah, thank you.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Thank you.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: And all I wanted to follow-up with is, it's just, it was really helpful for me, way you spoke about it in such a, I mean, a tender way, a way that we were able to hear, it helped me understand gender dysphoria, cisgender. You put it in a way that because we are all still coming to this stuff. It's not you know, we're all it's and you and I are very similar in age, and none of that was available to us when we were kids. I mean, you know You

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: were in the closet with a lock on it.

[Shawn Sweeney (Clerk)]: Yeah. Exactly. And it was just so thank you for just humanizing that.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Kevin?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Sounds to me as though the availability of drugs in all of those facilities is

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: it's just available. Very easy. Yes. Yes. I mean, I like I said, I stayed out.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: To me from what you've said, it's available because of the greed of the CEOs.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yes. That's that's a big part of the private prison industry because of what they make. Generally, if you look at the private prison industry is they're generally built in very depressed areas. So, like, they're lucky to have a job. So if you pay them $8 an hour less because they don't have a job. So that's why it's so rampant to be able to, in a sense, corrupt somebody. Whereas in the state of Vermont, I mean, SEALs are making a livable wage, and the policy and procedures and the oversight is vastly different as opposed to out of state. Because they really don't care because a lot of CCA and CHEO are just private prisons. They got a contract with Vermont. They're making millions and millions of dollars. And as long as nobody gets kinda caught with their hand in the cookie jar, they're okay.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And you're implying that Vermont is considerably different than all the other facilities you are at from the perspective of drugs being available?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: I haven't been in housed in the Vermont Department of Corrections when I first came in until when I came back. Yes, it's vastly different. The availability of drugs per se coming into the unit, they have X-ray machines, they X-ray your body when you come in. So if there's something that's not supposed to be there, they're going to see that. So it's a lot different than out of state. Yes, it's I would dare say out of state, you got like a ninety eight percent chance of getting drugs.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Ninety eight percent what?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Ninety eight percent chance of getting drugs in the facilities I've been at. I mean, I stayed high for eleven and a half years. Eleven and a half years every single day. Suboxone was what I got. So I stayed high every single day for eleven and a half years of my incarceration until I came sober. Coming up will be six years of my sobriety soon.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Who specifically said Suboxone?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Suboxone. Suboxone, simple text. They were strips. When I first came in, they were pills. So, yeah, it's it's it's fascinating. And I daresay in Vermont, having been housed in the male facility and the female facility, is that a lot of that comes from the misuse of the MAT program, the medicated assisted treatment where people are cheeking their medications and they're spitting it out and they're selling it in that thing. I can honestly say that in my entire eleven and a half years of using, I never did a bodily orifice drug. It's one thing I would never do. I'm not going to take something from somebody that could give me a disease, you know, and that's what happens in Vermont, the male facility and the female facilities, is the misuse of that medication. It is another whole topic that I am working on as well, you know, that I really want to advocate for as well.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: More and then I'll stop.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: What did

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: it take or how did you become drug free?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It was a point in my life, there was this internal conflict that I'd always said to myself, know, like, for the first probably twelve to thirteen years of my life, well, not that, Starting at eight years old to about 13, the alcohol, and then it turned quickly to drugs, was to cover up the sexual molestations by multiple men, the abuse by my mother, the environment that I lived in, was because of that. And at about 13 is where I transitioned literally into it was to protect Kalani, you know, because of the way the world was seeing me, you know. And it's kinda like to paraphrase a little about Pink Floyd's song. Like, you know, when, you know, when I was a child, I had a fever. My hands felt just like two balloons. Now I have that feeling once again. I can't explain. You will not understand. This is not how I am. And that's my identity as a woman. Like, would say that to friends, like, you don't I'd say that and they'd like, oh, no, I know you. And I'd be like, well, that right there tells you, you don't know me. Because that was my way of trying to come out, because I didn't have that. And so my addiction was tied to Kehlani for thirteen until I was 54. So that's forty years of my life, four decades tied to my identity and keeping Kalani safe from the world. And so when I when I became Kalani, there's this battle of like, what do you do? Like, you just came out, like, in a prison system, and you're really not gonna go back in the box. Like, you did it in the most seeable place you could possibly do that. You know? And so even more than the world, so to speak, because this is my world, And there was no hiding it. There was no going back. Like, this was my identity. And there was that battle, and it was a friend who said, you know, through all this stuff that said, if you're gonna keep getting high, just don't come back and talk to me anymore. And that was the catalyst gap, because it was a merry-go-round. I didn't know how to stop getting high. I woke up in the morning, I put the Suboxone in a spoon, went downstairs, heated my water, came back up, made my coffee, participated in taking of the drugs. And then that was, how do I get off that merry-goire? I wanted to stop, I just didn't opt, because it was literally I wake up and that was my routine.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Did they assist you in any way?

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: No, it was culture's use for me. I'm a firm believer in I quit smoking. It's gonna be I quit smoking. There's no tapering. Was I very uncomfortable? Yeah. After using for eleven and a half years, you know, consistently. Yes.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: Well, first of all, I want to thank you for who you are. Thank

[Brian Minier (Member)]: you.

[Mary A. Morrissey (Member)]: And, well, I said it before to you, I'm sorry that this happened to you. And I know I'm sorry doesn't cut it for what you've gone through, but I am truly so.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Thank you. I appreciate the committee allowing me to come here to testify. I certainly and greatly appreciate it to Troy. I felt hurt, you know, the way he when I watched the presenting of the bill and then the actual lawyer, and I felt truly represented. I felt truly heard and see, which is all I ever wanted in my life is that that was it. You know? And I'm very transparent because I've lived a lie for fifty one years of my life, and I'm I refuse to be transparent anymore, or I refuse to be locked in that box. I will be as transparent as somebody's comfortable in hearing, because nothing bothers me. And if it's to help other people, that's what I wanna do. That's all I wanna do.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, I wanna thank you for coming in. I think it's been a big help to the committee. I think it's also given us parameters or direction in terms of what to look at in the legislation to be a little bit more specific. We if the committee so wants to continue working on this bill, we'll reach out to DOC as well as you. I mean, we you can come back in the room at any time. We're taking testimony on it or watch it on YouTube either way. But it's really helped us in defining the issue, but it's helped us also in defining what we really need to look at legislatively for the department. I really appreciate it. Can I ask one more question?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: With the system the way it is right now and with the medical professionals that we have and the laws, if you made a decision you wanted to transition, what's the shortest period of time that you could go through all the phases

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: of transition? Generally, from my knowledge of working with Dartmouth Hitchcock is that they generally at least two years living as a woman, being on hormones before they consider you. And then you need the two letters of recommendation from exactly what I just suggested, a licensed psychiatrist or psychologist, a therapist specializing in gender dysphoria and working with transgender individuals. Those are the only people. A general practitioner is not going to get you the letter, is not going get you surgery, because they're looking for somebody that has that mental health extensive knowledge and background. Right,

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: so for an adult who makes that decision, two years trial, if you will, then hormone replacement for how long? I

[Brian Minier (Member)]: think that's probably testimony for the professional.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah, I mean, that's fair. I really just thought is so individual. Yeah, in each, we're all physiologically different. We're all different. How one reacts to some drug and how one reacts to another drug. So I don't know anything about the medical aspects of it. I just know in my transition is this is what my guidelines have been for me. Yeah. Thank you.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: You've been working on that for ten years, almost ten So it's not something I think the fallacy that people have, it happens overnight, that somebody wakes up one day and says, oh, just go

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to news.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yeah. Not in this country. Definitely. Definitely not.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Yeah.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Definitely. It really is.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I wanna thank you for coming in. This is your first time testifying for a legislative committee. Wasn't that bad, I hope.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Come back.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: It was easy from over here.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I really appreciate the information you've given. I think it's gonna help in really helping us focus on some direction. We Yeah. Work on a piece of legislation.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Thank you. I mean, I tell people one last thing is that for the first, like, fifty one years of my life, I hated the world. And I took everything, not just literally, you know, but the the emotions, the positive energy. I took all of that, and I just want to give back for the rest of my life because that's what I have to do, because that's who I embody. That's who I am. And it's about all of us. All of us. It's all I'd say, everybody being okay. You know? And at the end of the day, whether you understand or you accept Kehlani for being a trans woman, doesn't matter to me. Just please treat me like a human being, because we all are human at the end of the day. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much. Apologies. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. You. You. Take your hands.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Gonna do folks, wanna take a really quick break. We have someone on Zoom waiting.

[Kalani April Gagni (Formerly incarcerated witness)]: Yep.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Chris is waiting. If you can let Chris or so, we're gonna take a very quick break. Come back here within five minutes.