Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Good

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: morning, folks. This is House Corrections and Institutions Committee. It is Wednesday, February 18, and we are working on House Bill five fifty. We have preliminary review of this with a sponsor of the bill. We have not really gone over the bill per se too much with well, we did go over it with ledge counsel. There's been interest from the committee to do further testimony. So I think we have all of central office from people. Well, hope it can function without you folks being up there. This is our first real look see discussion on gender equity within our DOC facility. We've touched on this peripherally in the past in terms of trying to figure you know, ask the numbers of folks who are trans, where they're being housed, little bit what the process is. We wanna do a deeper dive into this and really, really look at housing and health care because we are responsible for everyone who is incarcerated, regardless of their gender identity, sexual orientation, any of that. We are responsible to them. They're under the custody of the state. So we wanna make sure that there's policies, directives in place to protect and take care of everyone who's under custody. And that's the goal of this legislation, goal of the committee. I'm gonna turn it over to both Jen and Josh. If you, I know you have this document. Also, you have this document with proposed language changes to to the bill. So I'll turn it over to both of you, and then if you could identify yourself for the record.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Of course. Jeff Shrethberg, Facilities Division deputy director.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Jennifer Spratke, prison rape elimination act and constituent services director.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So, we're going to back up about a decade and start when the department first started dealing with this. And actually, Director Sprafke and I were there almost from the beginning. We kind of remember yesterday if Jen actually started researching this in 2012 or 2013. But 2014 is when the department really first started grappling with this issue, and it can be difficult to remember how much social change there has been in this arena in the last decade, but 2014 was early. Very, very few systems were taking a concrete look at this population at that point in time. So in January 2015, we put out a policy gender identification, parent custody. In that policy, we said that we would recognize folks' pronouns and that we would make accommodations based on gender identity and that it was we could potentially house somebody in a facility based on gender identity, not birth sex. And again, in 2015, that was pretty radical. I think there were only maybe two other states, I think, at the time that were looking at that type of policy.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: It also specifically put in language that if somebody came in with a prosthetic, that they were to keep it, which was actually I think at that time California was the only other state that had even covered that at all.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: We recognized that this would be a big change for our staff. So we rolled out training. I called it Jen's Traveling Roadshow. But literally, Jen, and I think Ben Webster maybe, went to every site in the state and delivered this training. It was mandatory for all of our staff.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Well, how did you deliver that training?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Well, Alice, I don't know if you remember, we actually delivered it here to the committee, but when you were in the other tinier room. To

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the staff, how did you deliver them?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So it was done We went facility wide to make sure that we got all security staff. So we did it as part of like, you would any stipend training, whether it's our advanced communication techniques or first aid CPR. So it was a two hour delivery that covered the terms. These are the terms that you would use in the department. These are the allowable terms that state is using, how you would perform searches, whether we're talking about unclosed searches or closed searches or paths or strip searches. It talked about what kind of accommodations are allowed. And one of the most important things that it covered is that we operate in a world where we see corrections as a binary system and we operate like everything is known. But the reality is it isn't. When sheriffs bring people into our system, we trust that somebody's presentation matches their genitals, and that's not always accurate. And so one of the things you have to train folks is that you go conduct a search based off of the presentation and what law enforcement has told you, and you may start performing a search and find out that that person's genital status does not match that. And then what do you do? How do you respond? Who do you then refer it to? So we covered that. We talked about appropriate language. We talked about the difference between discrimination and a mistake. So if you are intentionally misgendering someone, you are aware of the pronouns that they have chosen and the name they have chosen, and you choose to use a different name, that's discrimination. But if you make a mistake and you use the wrong pronoun correct it, then it's just a mistake. And so the majority of the training was around that because everything else, as far as what do we allow, what's our process, that happens outside of correctional officers' hands. And they don't need to know that. They just need to know that there is one and that what they need to pass on so that we have the right information we need to make that decision.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: That was the training back in twenty fourteen, 'fifteen. Has that been now incorporated in the academy?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So we added it into the academy, but because we already had existing staff, like back in 2014, well, 2012, we did the circuit at all the facilities. So we did both at the same time. The academy training has changed significantly over time. And we now have an entire day that we call the identities unit. And in that unit, all of the subjects that we cover are the ways in which we as a society identify people or the way people can identify themselves. So we will talk about seriously mentally ill folks. We talk about victims of human trafficking, sex abuse, domestic violence. We talk about trans folks. We talk about folks who are not straight. So we talk about kind of all of those things, BIPOC populations, so people of color, because all of those things equal one thing in our system, vulnerability. And so the whole reason that we need to ensure that staff know what they're doing is because these are the folks that are vulnerable in our system. So when we created this unit, the intent was to take all of these things that were really important, but you couldn't have a half an hour unit here and an hour here. So we made one entire day. And so they all involve the same type of communication. They all involve that extra care and referrals that we have found is actually really staff are really receptive to it. We also added in I know you guys are interested in health care for our elderly population. Southern State has a significant amount of folks with dementia. And so we added a demented unit into that training as well, so that we are talking about how communication is different. Because you see a lot of behaviors that present from the elderly present the same way as folks who are being antisocial, but it's from a different motivation. So we cover that as well in that unit.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So with that evolution, that training has been happening at our academy for a decade now. We rolled it out to the existing staff in the facilities, and then it's been trained in the academy. And as I'm sure has been testified in front of this committee before, given the turnover in uniformed staff in our correctional facilities, for the vast, vast majority of our correctional officers, this has been their reality in corrections for their entire career. They have never not known a time when the department doesn't use folks' pronouns that they identify, doesn't recognize the place of gender diverse and transgender individuals in our system and the vulnerabilities they may protect.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And the department at that time was very, very worried that the issue we were gonna face was people being resistant. Because we're not exactly known, corrections in general is not known for being super liberal and accepting. But the reality is that's actually not what we experienced in training. The majority of the staff, they just didn't want to make a mistake. They didn't want to misgender someone and be labeled a bigot. They didn't wanna offend someone. So the majority of our older staff who didn't grow up in a world where there were these terms and this way of doing things, they just didn't wanna screw it up. And so they appreciated being able to have a dialogue that allowed them to be human and to acknowledge, I don't know what I don't know. Okay, now I know some things and now I know what I'm supposed to do. And then what we found over time was actually the younger population of staff ended up being more problematic. And it was the same thing we saw in the outside world, which is that whole, you know, if somebody gets something, I should get something. And we're like, but you're already getting it. One of the lines I gave that one of my colleagues love is I had a recruit that said, But I want a parade. And I said, Every day is a straight parade. You can go march down the street as a straight person if you want, just people aren't going to come watch it because it's not fun. That's all. It's not that you can't do it. It's that that's how life works. And so getting folks to understand that putting these things in place for this population is just about making sure that they are also they have a seat at the table and they're also represented. That's all. It's not that anything's being taken away from you.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So it was the next year, 2016, when we housed our first person under this policy according to their gender identity, not their birth sex. And actually, Jen and I were directly involved in that. I was superintendent in Rutland, and she was the assistant superintendent in Chittenden, and we made that transition for somebody in our system. And there was apprehension around that. The individual wanted to move, but also waffled back and forth because he was concerned about what that was going to be like. Staff had concerns. The cisgender women at Chittenden had concerns. So we made that change, that actually, I think, went really well, both for that individual and for everybody around.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: We learned a lot from that too, because one of the things we didn't realize is just we know how different the facilities are. We then assume our population knows that too, and the truth is they don't. So we learned when she arrived at Chittenden, she had only been in men's facilities. And so I met with her and was just saying, Hey, if you have questions, here's what you do. And then brought up the bathroom. And she had only ever experienced units where you were in a cell that had a toilet in it. She had never had communal bathrooms. And in the women's facility, we have communal bathrooms. And so all of a sudden, she was now concerned that folks were gonna think that she was gauging in behavior or accuse her of things in the bathroom. And so that was a wake up call of, oh. So we had the conversation of, we got to make sure that when we're transitioning people or even talking about moving people to other facilities, that we're engaging in open dialogue about the differences in those facilities so that folks can make informed decisions. So that they may say, you know what? No, I don't want to do that. Or they may continue to do that.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And I think that particularly, I think the case when we have transgender men work considering placement in men's facilities, because I think they really underestimate how different that experience would be. Correct. So in 2024, we started working on an updated policy. By that point in time, a lot had changed. Our practice had continued to evolve. So we've been working on that policy for a bit over a year now, and it is currently with the executive committee awaiting final signature. But let's talk about what we do currently. So as soon as somebody comes in our door, start one of the early forms that we do is a gender identification form, and we ask folks. We ask about their gender identity. We ask about their pronouns. We ask about their sexual orientation. And although those things are different, that is also a risk factor. Both actual and perceived sexual orientation is a potential risk factor. So some of this is about identifying folks who might be vulnerable in our system.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At that point, the person who's being booked is voluntary in terms of what they share.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, absolutely.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So are you finding that folks are pretty open in terms of their gender identification, sexual orientation?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, I think so. We do have occasionally folks who come in who are comes to jail on their best day. Right. And so we have folks who come in who are a little grumpy. I think we had somebody tell us the other day he was a sea lion or a walrus or something like that. He was intoxicated, he was angry, he was just being difficult. So we get that, but by and large, it's part of the routine questions that you get asked when you get booked in, and we don't see a lot of challenge with that. If there is an opportunity afterwards, after folks have calmed down, to redo some of that, or if somebody comes in and they're just not doing any of our paperwork. Sometimes somebody comes in and they're, I'm not doing any of your stuff. And then the next day they're a little calmer, we go through that. But yeah, no, I think generally folks are pretty open.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And one of the things that the PREA standards require is that perception piece. And the reason is because staff often say, wait a minute, I'm not supposed to judge people, but you're telling me I'm supposed to perceive someone. Well, yes, you are, but you're not perceiving someone based off of your judgment. You're looking at someone and saying, when this person comes into an institution, is someone else going to perceive or judge them and then treat them negatively for it? Because our job is to then protect them from that. So it's not that we're asking you as staff to look at someone and say, I think that person's gay, I think that person's trans. We're saying, when you look at them, do you think other people, when they see them, would then experience them negatively and then treat them badly for it? And if so, then we would categorize them that way, and then we would manage that in plan, which is part of this process. A lot of folks have some frustration over that perception phrase that's in the standards because they think of it as a judgment. It's not. It's literally a screening for safety.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So, I have for gender identity and identified pronoun, I have OMS front page listed on the slide. What that means is when you first pull that individual up in our system, the very first page that has basic demographic information about a person includes their gender identity and their pronouns. Obviously not every interaction somebody in corrections has with an Appropriated Person starts with the computer, but whenever I look at a file, whenever anybody looks at a file, we want them to have that basic information about a person's identity part of before they interact with them and so that they know. I know the question has come up in testimony around how do staff know that this person's pronouns are this? And that is one of the ways in which we ensure that that happens.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And that preference or the gender identification form, it's done, each facility has a site PREA compliance manager, and those folks are responsible for getting that message out to the staff, well, to the whole facility, when the person comes in to let them know the person is, what their pronouns are and what their identified name is, so that they're then acting accordingly when they're supervising them in their units. So that happens pretty much within the first twenty four hours.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So it's also when we gather accommodation requests, we ask about their search preference, whether they prefer to be searched by male or female staff, and start developing a housing plan.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And then once the housing plan is complete, that also becomes an alert in OMS so that once you look someone up, there's this alert screen that pops up and it lists in there the accommodations that a person has been granted. So, staff person would know the allowable items, the name, any of that, in addition to the name that's over on the side.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So, some things are automatic, without argument, from the moment you walk in the door. Identity is what you say your identity is. I'm not arguing with anybody about how they perceive themselves or how they want to present. Say this is your identity, we're going with that. Pronouns, same thing. Whatever your pronouns are, that's what we use. First name, if that's different than your legal name, we'll do that as well. Those are sort of based from the minute you walk in the door. After that, we start moving to areas that we review. There's accommodations, there's questions about searches, and then there's where we house people. And some of those accommodations are really easy to grant, some are a little harder to grant.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: One thing that I do want to mention is that intersex is a medical diagnosis. And so we have people who have come in who have said that they're intersex. That is one that you can say that you're intersex, but then we will be referring you to medical and medical will have to confirm that. And if medical does not confirm that, you're not intersex, just like I can't say I'm diabetic. Like I have to actually have some symptoms. There has to be a test to say that I'm diabetic. You can't just declare that you're intersex. And so we would say to the person, you don't meet the medical definition. If the person then chooses to identify as non binary, because sometimes people just don't know the terms and that's okay too. And so sometimes we have to kind of help walk people through it. We had one individual who came in, identified as transgender, and when we went to do the housing plan, we were like, this person doesn't Are we sure? And when somebody met with them, it turned out the person was just overweight and had breasts, And so because they were a man with breasts, they thought that meant they were transgender. And so after a conversation, we were like, Nope, everybody has breasts. It's okay. And that does not make you transgender. Is there anything else? And the person was like, No. And we were like, Okay, so you're not. So sometimes it's an educational piece.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So these are some of the common accommodations that get requested. Showering at head count. Sometimes there's concerns around We have sort of individual showers or individual stalls, so I think less than in some other systems where you might have those communal showers. But that is sometimes folks want a little extra privacy when they shower. Shaving, know, men might want to shave. I'm sorry, transgender females might want to shave their legs, more, whatever. So there's extra accommodations around shaving. Folks might want undergarments that match their gender identity, and all our male facilities have female undergarments available, both for any cisgender women who might show up and get lodged there who came in without any underwear, or came in with a mess, or for transgender women who are there who also want that. There's not a lot of difference in canteen items between men and women, but there are some. Then there's those other prosthetics isn't the right word, Jen, what is the right word?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Well, we usually just refer to them as aids for your presentation of your gender identity. So a chest binder, a penis binder, a gaff, things that constrict so that when people see you, they don't see physical markers that tell them what sex or genitals you may have. A packer is literally, that's the term that's used most often, but it's a prosthetic for transgender males so that it gives you essentially a bulge in your pants. A chest plate is just what it sounds like. It's a plate that you wear on the front that gives you the presentation of breasts. And then the chest binder I mentioned previously. So those are all a combination items. Sometimes we have people request other things. For example, if you're transgender female, you don't get tampons or maxi pads because you don't menstruate, so you're not going to get those things. And sometimes we have arguments over, But I'm a woman. Okay, you're a woman, but if we have a woman who doesn't menstruate, we're not giving them tampons either. With the shirt and the undergarments, it's the parody. If we give cisgender females these things, we give transgender females these things. If we give cisgender males these things, we give transgender males these things. We don't give them more. So the shaving accommodation that will be for transgender females matches the shaving that the women are allowed to do, the cisgender women are allowed to do at Chittenden. So they get to shave every day and they don't have to use the razor. They actually will get a razor to shave their legs versus the Oh, the electric?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yes, thank you. They normally have access to razors in most units anyway. So our general process, having gathered some of that information, the local multidisciplinary team develops a plan. So that's your facility management, that includes custody, includes casework, it includes mental health, medical programming, educational services. Those folks all come together and they make a plan. Then they bring that plan to central office, and it's the PREA compliance manager for the site who brings it to us, and then we have a central committee that reviews those, and that includes, I'm sure you guys have met Jordan Pasha, Director Pasha from Classification. He's there. Jen and I are both there. Kathy is here as our Director of Women's Services. We have a representative from medical. We have somebody from mental health. And when it's relevant, we will also pull in somebody from program services. So sometimes somebody comes in, they don't have a program obligation yet, but when they get to a point where they do, we'll specifically pull in program services that we make sure that we're looking at that piece. After that plan is completed, it's signed off by Health Services and Operations on behalf of the committee. There is, if somebody disagrees with elements of their plan, or feels that they weren't granted something they want, or think they are at need, they have access to the grievance process. We also get letters from folks sometimes, more than sometimes.

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: Met met we went and

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: met with an individual as well. Was upset.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: And more than

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: a couple, actually.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: At this time, the person that's incarcerated aware of the process in developing of the point

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: of Oh yeah, yes.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Because one of the requirements from Priya is that you have to take into account the person's wishes. You Which is part of this? So they're a part of the local one. So that facility, the local multidisciplinary team, the PREA compliance manager or designee meets with the individual and talks with them around are you wanting to stay here? Are you wanting to go to a different facility? Who do you want to search you? That kind of thing. They ask those questions. And then that information is then brought to the central team. The individual is not a part of that meeting. And then we sometimes, if we need to, we will go back to the In the meeting with the local team, we'll be like, we need more because we don't have enough information or we have some questions or some concerns. And so then the local site will go and meet. And then depending on We meet every single week. That is the thing we established because some of these were getting a bit log jammed. And so we have a set weekly meeting. So we're always able to review. And if we have emergent ones where somebody gets lodged on a Friday of a three day weekend, have an email alias. So we all get the email and we'll correspond with each other to figure out where the person needs to go and what we need to do if there's a plan we need to put in place, Especially if the facility is saying, Here's the thing we want to do. Will you let us do it? We will move on that very quickly.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: You might get somebody in at Rutland. A transgender female, maybe one that we've housed at Chittenden before. And Rutland said, Hey, we've got this person. We'd really like to put them at Chittenden. We don't want to leave them at Chittenden. So they'll pull us in real quick and we'll go, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. We'll go ahead and do that this weekend. Or maybe we're not so sure that makes sense. Right. Keep her in Rutland, keep her separate from the population until we can get some more information on Monday. So we make those sort of determinations before we get to our formal plan, because folks come in twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I think we have some questions. Kevin, did you break up? Then Shawn?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I guess I answered or heard the answer to the question. The grievance would be where the individual disagrees with the plan

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: that Yep. Yep.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Do we have another question?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Just quick, for clarity, are you going down in person to meet these people?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Are you seeing them over Zoom? Is it? Or like when you're when these people

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: are coming into room, know, some of

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: facility would meet with them in person.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Okay. Someone there is doing that. And you're overseeing that?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yes. Then we have our regular meeting. We put them on the agenda. The facility for your compliance manager and the superintendent, if necessary, or anyone else they want to be a part of the meeting. The facilities do it differently. Come on. They present the plan to us where we are able to then ask questions and discuss the case.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: We also have on occasion gone to sites. So we had a transgender woman who was living at Chittenden who said, I wanna go back to a men's facility. And so part of that process before we approved that change was some folks went and met with her to talk about that. I was at Chittenden not too long ago. We had a transgender male who was thinking about moving to men's facilities. No experience being in men's facilities. And so I went there and met with him to talk about, Hey, this is what that looks like. This is why I might be a little concerned about that. I'm not going to say no, but I want you to think about these areas. You're five'five and one hundred and thirty pounds. There could be safety concerns. And he hadn't really thought that part through.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And we also had the facility. So when we meet, so the reason why we have all the different facets on here is so that Jordan and Josh know where these folks are gonna go. And so we brought in the facility that if we transferred this person to a male facility, we knew we identified the facility they would go to. So we brought in that facility staff as well to be a part of the meeting. Because if I'm going somewhere and I'm not sure where I wanna go, I wanna hear from somebody who's there. And so we thought that was really important. So we had staff from Chittenden where they currently were, from Southern where they would go if they were gonna get transferred, and then folks housing committee as well to say, hey, we just want to make sure that you're fully informed on what this decision is. And do you want to do it? And the other thing is a person can grieve it and they can also resubmit. If they say, nope, I don't want to go. And then in a month, they're like, you know what? I thought about it and I do. They can then make a new request and we'll review it the same way.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So that we review anytime somebody transfers between institutions because folks' requests and what they're comfortable with may vary from institution to institution. Otherwise, we do a review every six months, even if only stays in the same place, and some of those after some time are pretty easy. We've been living in the same place for three years now, things are pretty stable, But we review every six months, and then upon request. And that upon request is important, because that helps us be consistent with staff. If I say, Representative Headrick, I want you to call me this, and then you're gonna wait, Representative Morrissey, I want you to call me this. That's gonna get very confusing for our staff. So we do ask folks when you're making a change, please put a formal request in. Let's go through the process so we can give everybody the same direction, so that staff know what they're doing and we can be consistent with that regard.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: We have another question, Brian.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Yeah. Sorry, my brain is still catching up a little bit. Your hypothetical about fivefiveone hundred thirty, in the hypothetical, was that about a transbound?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yes.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: So what I'm thinking about is I'm trying to get my head around the lenses through which you're looking at this process. And so you had talked about vulnerability. And you're also talking in a way about respect. But I'm also thinking about a fear angle or whatever you want to say. So if there's, for instance, make up a straight cis guy who's five'five, one hundred thirty. Does that also come into it? Yes.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So that is, we have cisgender men who are also vulnerable in our system. And that is part of that perception when folks come in. So a very young or small cisgender male might also be vulnerable in our system. There is also a certain vulnerability that comes with having female genitals in a male facility. And not that we have never housed a transgender male in a male facility, we have, but it requires an extra thought about concern, because we want to make sure that folks in our facilities are safe.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And I'm smiling because when we were staffing this, Josh's operations. And so he was saying the very thing. This person is five'five. They're small. And I don't think they understand the extra risk of being in a male facility. And I said, well, as a woman who lives in this planet, I can assure you, I've been raised since I was, what, enough to old enough to understand language that I am going to be a victim of sexual assault, that's my reality. I live that every day. So the idea that we're putting you in a risky situation is still a safer risky situation than walking down and out at night by yourself. So one of the things that we grapple with constantly on this committee is while we have to acknowledge risk, we also have to understand that there is inherent risk within the system itself. And what we cannot do is then treat somebody differently because they're transgender than we would somebody who is a cis male, who's five'five, one hundred and twenty. But that doesn't mean we're gonna say, well, since we could have a cis male that's tiny, we're gonna send you and it's fine. We don't do that, but we have to weigh those things out. And it's why we love our jobs. They're very excited. And it's why we deserve the right to change them. And I can't tell you enough how hard our facility staff work. From line staff to managers to caseworkers, They know their population and they know risk as best as they can. And they are on-site all the time looking at this. And so we count on them in these staffing meetings to get us that information. And when they say uncle, we answer because when they're saying, Hey, listen, we don't think this is working out. Because for example, the person who was saying, I want to go to a different facility, we had said no, I don't know how many times when they requested to go to a male facility. We said, No, we don't think that's the best idea for you. And the facility agreed. The facility was the one that was like, We think it might be time. We think it's not really working anymore. So we worked with the male facility we were going to send them to. We had those two facilities communicate and they had a really great plan of transition. And then people have regrets. And so I just can't We count on the security staff, the caseworkers, the managers that are really those frontline folks that know what to look for. And they know they have an avenue to get that stuff forward so we can mitigate it as best as possible.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: Well, in this all, I didn't think I had a second question. Now I do. I assume I know the answer to it. But are reasonable accommodations ever refused, rejected, put off because staffing, because facilities, because logistics?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: The only thing I can think of that happened one time was we had a transgender female that was going to Chittenden that had to wait because there wasn't a cell available in the unit they wanted to place them.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, think they needed the mental health.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, they needed to go into Bravo, and there wasn't a bed in Bravo. And I think the person waited maybe a couple extra weeks, but it wasn't anything to do with the staffing or because I can't

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Well, I mean, some of those things I mean, staffing is a challenge. I mean, you all know that, but there are certain things where I can't just not accommodate for the staffing. They're basic. I have to do Whether I have the staff do them or not, we have to do it. And this falls into that category. These are things we just need to do to be properly meeting the needs of the folks that

[Brian Minier (Member)]: are asking.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Thank you,

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: that was the question.

[Brian Minier (Member)]: That's good question.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Kevin and this- Charlie, same question, but I wanna make a balance. So if an individual asks for a review of the plan, what percent of this time does the individual disagree with your decision? 50% of the time?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: No, I wouldn't take 50.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Like the one? Well, I was So for folks that are making the request with good intention, because we obviously have some folks in our system that are little antisocial and sometimes use whatever options they can if they think they're gonna get something special. But for folks who are truly identifying as gender diverse, transgender, intersex, and making these requests, I mean, I'd say it's like maybe five percent if you

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, have was gonna say it's a fairly small percentage, a lot of folks. And again, part of that is it's a conversation at that flight level.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Your interpretation of their genuine need plays a big factor in

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

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: They don't ask, I mean, as weird as They don't ask for a lot. I mean, as far When you think about that list of things, there's a lot more things to complain about in a correctional facility than those things. And so we tend not They're not asking for anything huge, so therefore it's easy to meet what they're requesting in most cases. In most cases.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Oh, thanks. First of fantastic testimony so far. I've learned more in half an hour, and it's both the information and the manner in what you're talking about. So that's really appreciated. A couple of weeks ago, I heard some disturbing testimony about CoreCivic, right? An individual and how she felt prior to transitioning, she was treated down there as she was wrestling with these issues. Sure enough, I don't want to stereotype, but when you have a private prison set up shop in the most impoverished town in Mississippi, there's a certain culture down there that doesn't necessarily maybe conform with our Vermont mentality. So the question is, do we send people who might be questioning gender identity down there? Do we send anybody we perceive as vulnerable to CoreCivic in Mississippi? And the second question is, if somebody is wrestling with their gender identity while housed at CoreCivic, how does the process work? Who do they talk to? Do they have the same access to people who are going to help them navigate this process?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So after we moved to Mississippi, we did find some challenges in that regard, and some of that is very cultural. Irrespective of private prisons, and that's a whole separate conversation, the way Mississippi and Vermont culturally approach this issue is different, and we did find that that posed a challenge in a number of ways. And we returned a number of folks from Mississippi who were transgender because we had concerns around whether or not that venue was meeting sort of what we would consider the standard of care maybe here in Vermont. We don't have an absent bar on sending folks to Mississippi who are transgender, in part because we do have folks who will play secondary games. If I say, if you say you're transgender, you can't go out of state, I will have some folks play that game on purpose. But we have added an extra level of review. They're not our first priority population. There is a level of review and that includes our committee has to review and approve. And I don't know that we have approved any since I've been on the committee for the last four or five years.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: No, We had one individual who knew that their sentence structure was such that going out of state made sense and they actually wanted to. And what they told us ahead of time was, I'm going as a cis male. I am not going as transgender. And that's a personal decision. I mean, I don't walk around announcing I'm a woman everywhere I go. I mean, I present the way I present and people perceive me however they want. So this notion that people have to declare all the time is just not true for everyone else. And so it doesn't matter if someone chooses to not then identify. And so they went as a cisgender male. And then when they returned, they identified as transgender female. That was their safety plan. And that was the way they wanted to do it. And that was fine. And so in those cases, a person could request it. And if they chose to go with that identity, then And we would obviously communicate with CoreCivic and make sure that we're clear. And also for you to know, really as part of your second question, is that CoreCivic does comply with PREA and I work with their PREA coordinator. And so they have to follow the same requirements under PREA for folks who are trans and intersex. And so they do, if a person identifies there, then they would follow the same process. They would have to do an accommodation form and do a housing plan that they would have to review twice a year. So they follow those same requirements. Then they would let us know. Our folks that are in charge of the out state facility would be a part of that conversation.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So I was gonna say, and Amber's here, she used to be one of our out of state case workers, but our out of state case workers do go down to visit those sites. Actually, Director Jacobs went down not too, too long ago herself, And our incarcerated individuals who were housed out of state actually had email access to their caseworkers, which is something we don't have in state, that you can just put a slip of paper out of their door. But out of state, they can email our caseworkers and get a live response. So if somebody was experiencing issues or had concerns out of there, there is that process to be able to do that.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Actually, can I follow-up on one thing? Tell me if I'm getting

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: ahead of it, because I

[Conor Casey (Member)]: think pre is coming up there.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: It is, it is,

[Conor Casey (Member)]: it's why

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: I'm coming up.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: I'm really worried about pre, right? Because in December, there was that Department of Justice memo that said, All right, pre is the law, but it conflicts with our executive order with the Trump administration. So, we're advising people not to comply with it anymore. We're not

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: gonna track it. We're not

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: gonna Can you give us two slides? Two slides, and we're gonna go there.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: Okay, okay. Troy?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Before we get there, let me just pause because I'm hearing some things that don't align with testimony we've received. One, I just want to state it clearly, I am grateful to be in Vermont, to be working with the DOC of Vermont. Everything you've presented going back to 2014, as I think you've indicated, Josh, is ahead of the curve, right? And I'm grateful for that. I've identified this sort of gap before with the Department of Corrections. It happened when we were talking about ICE detainees and the gap between what the department says is in place and what the advocates are saying is reality. We're seeing it similarly when we talk about how are we going to get funding to the parole board. We can do this better is what I'm hearing from DOC. I'm going to be a little more cautious and concerned and critical of the gap in this scenario. So, we have her testimony, and I'm going to call it credible testimony. And I'm using the word credible very deliberately here. For me, credibility is an evaluation. This person is saying this. This person is saying this. Where is the credibility? The reason I'm calling the testimony credible is because this woman doesn't have anything to gain. She's released. She's not raising a flag of her current conditions. She's talking about what it was like. A woman lived in male facilities out of state for most of her sixteen year tenure, nearly all but maybe two years Kentucky, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and then Mississippi. And she talked about her coming to terms with her transition at the end of her stay in Michigan. She talked about what it was like to be a trans woman in Pennsylvania, and how encouraging that was for her, and then the nosedive she took when she arrived to Mississippi. So I am not convinced that Mississippi is doing well by the Prison Rape Elimination Act at all convinced. In fact, I'm terrified and worried. And when we talk about a PREA violation, that's administrative euphemism for a rape has occurred or conditions are ripe for rapes to occur. She did provide testimony that identified her sexual assault, her rape, to her identity as a trans woman. She provided testimony about the injury she sustained defending herself while a rape was occurring. So that's what's happening currently.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: We watched that testimony.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: She talked about how she made requests. She talked about with me. I can't remember if she did this on testimony or not. We met privately. And she was the impetus for me writing this bill about requesting to come back to Vermont, especially with the death of her sister. And that was denied. So I'm really worried about this gap in this case, the gap between I don't doubt the policy exists. She's talked about being misgendered at CRCF, barely recently. She's talked about comments made about the depth of her voice at CRCF, barely recently. So the protocol is there. The policy is there. I'm not convinced it's playing out in practice. That's my worry. And I'm especially worried about the intersection with our current out of state contract in Mississippi. I am not at all convinced that they do PREA like Vermont does PREA. That's a significant worry to me. She talked about complaints she made that just didn't get me. When you don't have a PREA complaint, yet a rape has occurred, that's meaningful. That's a hole. That's a gap. I don't know where I'm going with this, but

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: I'm

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: not convinced that, practically speaking, these protocols and these policies are playing out as we are told they are playing out.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: So we specifically brought back after we've been in Mississippi a while, and we had some concerns. And so we brought back a number of folks. I don't want to get into anybody's individual case, but we did bring back some folks where we felt we could better meet their needs in Vermont. And so it was after that point, we brought back folks who identified as transgender back to Vermont, and we added that piece around the committee reviewing before folks go out. And like I said, I've been on that committee now, I think since 2021, and I don't know we're tallest approving anybody, but there is that possibility. But yeah, we did return folks very specifically due to some concerns about whether or not the care there was consistent with our expectations. There was also a conversation at that time with, I think you were working with law enforcement down there as

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: well,

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: to follow-up on to make sure that things that were alleged were appropriately investigated and were appropriate prosecuted.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So as you identified, every state, even though PREA is a federal law and there are things that are certainly prescribed, you can do it differently. Auditors can do it differently and they can measure different things. And the truth is with some things, the auditor can only do as good of a job as the information that's presented to them. And so if you wanted to present them some great looking picture when you're not doing great work, you could in some cases. So your concern is noted. But, you know, obviously Vermont is very different than CoreCivic. We have a much smaller system. We are a direct supervision state. The type of training that we do is different. And so, there's always a learning curve when we're working together. And at the time, the out of state supervisor had, we had had a conversation because they kind of operate as the out of state PREA compliance manager only from a Vermont lens. We had some conversations around some incidents that had come forward, and we thought that a better investigation needed to be done. And so the decision was that we returned all of the folks that were identifying as transgender female, because obviously we only send males, sex males out of state, and worked with Mississippi. And then they worked with local law enforcement and a comprehensive investigation was done to include an individual who we had to have conversations with about returning to Kentucky to testify. Mississippi. Mississippi. Sorry, Kentucky was way before that. So one of the things you're seeing is, we obviously don't want to sit here and sound like we're saying negative things about CoreCivic, but at the same time, we have a responsibility to look after the people in our care. And so we had concerns at the time. We did return folks. We had some conversations with them about investigations and about the practice. And since then, our response is to have a more scrutinized process for who we would send out of state. And I think since then, we have not sent anyone out of state that is identifying as trans. And I mean, think one of the things that is key is PREA doesn't solve everything. It lays down expectations and responsibilities. And so of course we are still gonna have sexual assaults happen because we have sexual assaults happening in society and we have not been able to end those. And we are going to have misgendering. We are going to have sexual harassment. And I'm not saying that I'm okay with it, but I'm saying that when those incidents occur, that does not mean that we're failing. The key points are we are we responding when we receive the reports? When someone is filing a report, is that getting passed up? Is it getting investigated? And are we holding folks accountable? And so one of the things that can be really tricky in these cases is when is it harassment and when is it not? And there are different standards. If you look at the definitions in PREA, there are different standards for what is sexual harassment, whether it's done by an incarcerated individual or a staff member. And so we address and respond to those incidents. And does that change the way a person feels when they've been discriminated against or harassed? No, it's an awful feeling. Do I want it to occur? Absolutely not. It will. And for me, the measure of what we're doing is then how we respond to that. And so I appreciate every you know, all the concerns that you're bringing up for sure. And I think that's the role that we play is your job is to question it, and our job is to let you know what we're doing. And if there are specific things that we can do better, then we're gonna do them better.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And it was very intentional that we watched that testimony. When I saw that on your agenda, I'm like, Oh, I very much wanna hear that. And then watched it and shared the clip with a number of other Actually, our whole committee would be to make sure that everybody saw this, so that we're aware of what's being said and how folks are experiencing things.

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

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I guess, like, just drilling down into that a little bit more, I mean, you watched the testimony, you sat here

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: and listened to it. So what's your take on it? Can you share? What can you share of

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: There are some things that out of respect for the individual, I don't know that we want on YouTube. I am happy to because I was actually gonna say that if there's if we wanna have some there are some responses I definitely have, and I wanna be very clear that they are not negative to the person that provided testimony. I wanna say that this is not, you know, refuting it off camera kind of a deal. They're just I wanna be very respectful of the fact that that's a, you know, a public It's very personal thing. It's incredibly personal. So, I don't

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: think we would share the specific results of anybody to allegation of sexual assault in our custody, sort of in this rather public forum. I don't think that would be appropriate.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: I think the other thing that is really important to mention too is that, you know, there are certain places where a person walks in and they feel welcome. And it, you know, and it depends on each person. When I first showed up at the Correctional Academy to be a correctional officer, I was very aware that I was a woman in a man's world. And so when you are a transgender, intersex, gender diverse individual walking into a prison, that is not a welcoming environment. And when you see somebody in uniform, there's a perception and a judgment. And so we already have this sort of push and pull where the person then has to figure out, are you safe for me? And I can stand there and tell you I'm safe. I could wear a pink triangle and tell you I'm an ally, but you got to pony up. We have to demonstrate that. And so for every time we have a case where someone misgenders someone, whether intentional or not, we have to do a lot of work to make it clear that that was a mistake versus that was intentional. Because there's already gonna be that judgment that it was intentional just because of the nature of the environment. And so I think that we are constantly fighting that battle of the perception and then the reality of the environment itself.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And the use of pronouns is mandated in training and policy. So if someone is intentionally misgendering somebody, they are subject to potential discipline. We did terminate an employee for making some fairly egregious comments off duty, but in a public forum. Fairly egregious comments about transgender folks that really caused the commission to question whether or not they could trust this person to provide adequate supervision. But sorting out, did this particular person make this comment at this time, and was it accidental, or was it Absolutely can be challenging, and I think Representative Casey would recognize that staff also have rights under collective bargaining around discipline and things like that. But the expectation for staff is that they abide by that. That is in our policy. That is in our training. And there certainly are potential disciplinary consequences for folks when they intentionally violate that. I cannot sit here and say that nobody ever offended somebody in our I flat can't say that. I do know that a number of the trans folks in our custody have concerns around the other incarcerated individuals, not all of whom are respectful, and some of whom are deeply disrespectful. And that can be policed and addressed, but only to a certain extent. Any of you guys who have been in Southern or Northern, if you walk across that backyard, people can yell things anonymously from behind windows, and folks do that.

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: And Northwest. Oh, and you

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: can't always fix that. You can always prevent that. We can address it when we hear it. We can address it when we see it. We can address it when we know we get it. But until we eliminate that in society, we're not going to eliminate that our custody either.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we have another question here. Kevin?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: I wanted to get into the details, but you listened to the testimony. Did you find it credible?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: I thought she presented brilliantly. I thought that she was I mean, that is coming in this room and testifying for anybody is not easy. It's why, actually, my two regional pre

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can I have everybody here with you?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah. Because at some point I'm going to retire. And I remember what it was like the first time I came in here, and it's daunting. And so for a person who's not even in a professional capacity and doesn't have the help of Haley and getting you prepped or a colleague with you, it is overwhelming. I've never had to talk about anything personal. And so hats off. Matter of fact, I was sick and listening to it, I sent the text to Josh and said that she did an incredible job.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And that process of coming to terms with gender identity can be very difficult, especially I think for folks of the generation that didn't grow up with that. And so we've seen that, and it's not easier to do that in a correctional environment. And know she talked about doing that in sort of three different states with different experiences in each and that cannot be easy. Even aside from sort of the outright abuse she talked about, just that process of coming to grips with their own gender identity wouldn't have been easy in the community and certainly wasn't made easier by being incarcerated. We have seen, I think we're seeing something different with the folks who are coming in the door now, who are more familiar with their gender identity, walking the door. But we have seen a small cadre of folks who came to terms with their gender identity while incarcerated, who came into the system as men. That's how they presented. That may have been how they identified, or they may have known something different, but not known words for it, and then came to that, or came to help with that during the course of the incarceration. And that's absolutely challenging.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: I think the other two things from the testimony is, you know, at some point, I hope the world improves in such that we don't keep asking the people who are marginalized to speak about their marginalization. We need to be better, and we should not have to count on someone who is transgender to tell us what we're doing wrong so we can fix it. It's not like we don't know. Now, to that extent, the other part that was mentioned in testimony was around being able to communicate with people and talk about the experience. And so one of the things we talked about was connecting with her and looking at system improvements, looking at resources. Because somewhere in the slides, we talk about There aren't community resources. So we can talk about bringing them in. But let's not forget the Pride Center was defunct because it didn't have funding until a donation came. So when we're talking about resources, they have to be available. And then they have to be willing to work within a confinement setting, which many moons ago when we talked to the Pride Center, they very honestly said, we have to be really careful about this because if we're providing services, we have people that are getting services that have been mistreated by folks in law enforcement. And if they know we're working with law enforcement, that could be triggering for them. We were like, Oh, that's something we hadn't thought of. So it's a complicated environment. But that was definitely one thing that came out of testimony is, I mean, you're in the system, you know what it's like. And so if there are certain things that we can glean from that, that we can do better, great. And we know, like, we need to do a better education with incarcerated individuals. We talked a lot about staff and mistreatment, but you also have to understand that the incarcerated individuals that come in have come from the same world with same judgments and same misconceptions. So providing a better education for those folks so that they know how to respond and what something actually is versus what they think it is would be really key. And if that's something that the person can help with, then let's do it.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Let's So keep moving on.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Well, we're actually going

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: to turn over

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: to medical in a second. I think one brief piece I want to say before we go there is when looking at these accommodations, the three factors we really look at are the safety of the person, the safety of others around them, and then operational and institutional realities. What does it mean to be a transgender male in a male facility? But in particular, that safety of the individuals and safety of others. And a little later, we'll get into some of the characteristics of the population that we have incarcerated and how that plays into safety. But I would like to turn it over to our medical provider.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: I'm just gonna say one more Of

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: course, you can.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So the safety piece, because this happens all the time. Let's be clear. The real issue, the real thing that's out in the world is this notion that we're gonna have men go into women's facilities and impregnate women. And I'll say the same thing I said or to rape them. Or rape Yes. And I'll say the same thing to this group that I did to commissioner Menard many years ago, which is you you already have males in the facility that are capable of sexual abuse, or PREA wouldn't exist. No one is talking about eliminating male staff and female facilities. Why are we talking about eliminating transgender females who have a very small likelihood of committing sexual assault? People wanna focus on hormones and whether or not someone can get an erection or not irrelevant. I have no idea what anyone's hormone levels are in this room. So the notion that I get to know someone's because they're transgender is ridiculous and rude. So this assumption that just because someone has a penis means they're gonna rape and impregnate is just not real. And that that risk would only come from the transgender population is not real. So if we're going to have a real conversation about safety and risk, we have to incorporate all of the folks that have that appendage, not just one small section of the population. Because, again, staff across the country have committed sexual abuse on male incarcerated individuals, female incarcerated individuals, transgender, intersex. It happens. It's despicable. It's disgusting.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: We actually you, among others, came here to this body to ask to make it a crime. Yeah. We did. Because that's something that shouldn't happen in our system, and regrettably sometimes does. And it should be a drive. When we look It's violation of our most basic responsibilities.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: When we look at that risk, that is not one of the things that we're looking at. Because we also In the beginning, we did have a conversation about hormone levels and then learned, you can't measure it that way. It doesn't work out. You don't give somebody hormones and then do a test and you can tell they're taking it or not. And then what does that mean? Because you don't know that because I'm a woman, I'm attracted to women or attracted to men, so why would we assume the same for a transgender person? And so if someone is sexually attracted to women, and they're transgender female, that's not a thing that would prohibit them from going to Chittenden, because guess what?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: We have cisgender women who are attracted to women.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So it's whole package that we're looking at in trying to measure those pieces. I did want to make that

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Yeah, and I think we get back to that a little later, but I would love to turn over to Doctor. Ulicer because I don't make medical decisions. No, I

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: like I should.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Well, I do have

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: a colleague who's online, Doctor. Richards. Are you able to hear me?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Yes, hello.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Awesome.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: So thank you so much. Work with our DOC colleagues

[Brian Minier (Member)]: all

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: the time. Oh,

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: I'm sorry. Thank you. I should know by now. So I'm Doctor. Jim Yuliger. I'm a family physician and addiction medicine specialist for WellPath and the state medical director for Department of Corrections. Doctor. Richards, would you like to identify yourself?

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: Yeah, Doctor. Allison Richards. I'm a psychiatrist, child psychiatrist, work for Well Path overseeing the Vermont contract. Thank you. Yeah,

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: so we work with our DOC colleagues daily on these questions, but I've never had the pleasure of sitting and hearing the whole package presented, and I'm impressed. Having watched the testimony, I had some of the same questions as you do, and I was thinking about, see this, the thing I am most expert in is opiate use disorder, and that's a culture change too. And so we still see people saying the wrong kind of thing, so it's been very much a journey, and that was kind of an analogy that I was thinking like, yes, there's this mismatch, and I'm seeing that in my area of expertise too. I'm trying to figure out where to start. If it's okay, I'm happy to tell you what we do in medical, the journey we're on. I had something I just wanted to reflect on the bill language briefly. Is it okay if I start that? That's very succinct. It speaks very appropriately about cultural competence, and I think that makes a lot of sense. Cultural competence is very, as you can imagine, culturally contextual. So I, having a Deaf brother-in-law, I have significant cultural competence in the Deaf community. I do not have significant cultural competence in the Native American community of a specific. So that's one. So it's of, it's a bit broad, and I don't know how I would carry that out just to have culturally competent. Culturally humble. I don't know what the right word is. I'm not offering you, and I can come back and think about it at that.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Because we do indicate a definition for cultural competency, which is

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: It was further up, so maybe It's I didn't

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Title 18, Section two fifty one. So there is a definition already in statute that deals with that. So you'd have to go to 18 BSA section two fifty one. Troy?

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: I just want to ask a clarifying question. Are you suggesting or worried about cultural competency not being robust enough of a requirement for what we're asking for?

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: I couldn't hire somebody who's culturally competent in all the different cultures that we're going to see in our setting. So that's just reading that aside from the cultural competent definition. I think it needs to be a little bit broader, because if we have a Deaf person in prison or die, if we have somebody else, we're going to have to And so this dovetails to my other comment, is that for things, there's a certain level, just using gender identity as a starting place, there's a certain level of competency that I would expect of all of our healthcare providers and staff, And then there's an expert level. And so I think something that would speak to the fact that people understand their own cultural biases and the need to understand other people's cultural contexts and the ability to access education and especially liberal expertise when they need it. And I apologize, I only recently saw the full text of the bill, so I can be more But the spirit makes total sense, and I just want to make sure it's something we can honor. As you know, my style by now, I'm going to be very candid with the places we have to go. Hearing our and I'll even start with that, hearing my DOC colleagues speak about, from an intake process, of how open a process that we have about, on the security side, of determining people's pronouns and etc. We currently do not have a formal process for that. In 2024, in connection with DOC Health and Wellness, we identified a need to edit the intake process called the PEO2. It's just the nursing intake on the medical side, and that needed to include the pronoun and the person's preferred name. We're still waiting to finish the overview of that PEO2 to actually put that into operations into Correct Also, current version of Correct Tech we have, and Doctor. Richards, correct me if I'm wrong, but there is not a place for pronoun. A place for what? A preferred pronoun. That's just a technological limitation that we don't have. I will say for most of our people we know, the way this usually works is our DOC colleagues will tell us that we've done this intake on person so and so, and this is how they identify. And also, occasionally, we find out it's different what you reveal to your medical provider in what's supposed to be a confidential setting. So if we find out something that they don't know with the patient's permission, of course, we turn around and tell them. We need to be more formal at that process. I'll start with I would like now, if it's okay, to turn it over to Doctor. Richards, because though we have a long way to go, we're in a very different place than we were, and she's been heading up most of that effort, So I'd like to give her just a few minutes to talk about a lot of the work that's been done. So Doctor. Richards?

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, everyone. So I testified once before this committee, appreciate the opportunity. When I took this position, it was sort of on the forefront partnering with the Department of Corrections and the mental health team really that seems to be in psychiatry, the gender dysphoria is in the DSM-five, it became our wheelhouse, so to speak. And so we've really done a lot of work partnering to create a program, I would say within WellPath and within the healthcare services. When I started, I don't know that there was really much of anything. I can't speak to what happened before I came on board, but a few things that we've done. So yes, recognize there was a And we, that was in 2024 and it's a slow process to get all of the electronic record rebuilt, but it is on the list of things that need to be added in the interim. There's a little pop up page in the record that helps. We can add that and say, like, some of our patients we do, we have here's their preferred pronouns, here's their preferred name. And we honor that. And I think we do a really good job of that within the healthcare department, but we're not always perfect. Of the ways that we within WellPath, we have a policy on gender affirming care. One of the ways that we recognize individuals is from intake. DOC will inform us and or we, if it comes to our attention in healthcare, we vice versa, we share with DOC and make sure that everyone's on the same page about pronouns, identity, and then we take it from there. We have what we call a critical clinical event. It's sort of a risk management notification system within WellPath. And anytime a person identifies as wanting transgender care or gender affirming care, we submit one of those so that it's brought to the attention of leadership and that we can ensure that we're diligent about following that individual's needs given the complexities. So we have that system. I started a committee, a gender affirming care committee. It's multidisciplinary, many different members attend. We have a, I would say a small number of patients. However, we track all of those patients with the Department of Corrections, to ensure that we're on top of requests for hormones, for surgeries, for whatever requests for housing, we'll push that to the DOC. So we track all of those. We also have a, every Friday we do our clinical review of patients and we have a special section on gender affirming care so that we are up to date on that, if you will. We have chronic mental illness. We update on that. And we also address gender affirming care each week with the client. A few things that we did, so we have a spreadsheet. We were doing a training. So for WellPath staff, all healthcare staff this month, we're doing a gender affirming care training. And it does speak to some level of cultural competency, but not expert level in all of the staff, I guess I would say. But everyone it's required training. It's going to be put on by two members of the corporate, WellPath gender affirming care committee, and it's going to be put on three different times. Everyone's going to attend it. Will eventually be part of the mandatory requirements for staff within our system, but this is a live training. We've invited DOC to attend that as well. So that's happening this month. Sent last year, I think myself and six other staff members that were sort of thought to mental health directors, the behavioral health director, myself attended a WPATH workshop on gender affirming care to get our staff more exposure and in gender affirming care. We plan to continue to do trainings like that as they pop up and as are relevant for our staff so that they feel more comfortable in helping someone from where they are to where they want to be. We certainly are very supportive And of then I think, oh, we just recently brought on a WPATH PEI-eight. So she's like the top level of WPATH training mentor to help collaborate on our cases and do some education and training with our staff. That's the broad overview of the things that we've done since we've taken over the contract.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: And Doctor. Richards, I think there's a couple of people having trouble hearing, and I'll just I'm sorry. No, no, no, it's fine. I'll just reinforce a couple of things, and then just to add some color, and then I think there's some questions. So the WPATH training that we brought, that Doctor. Richards is referring to, that we set some of our folks to receive is the national expert body that the person providing testimony from a couple weeks ago, I'm forgetting her name, but that's what she was referring to, so just to connect that line. Is that a certification? They don't, and WPATH, a professional organization like the American Association of Cardiology, or American Cardiology Association. So they make guidelines. And I do believe there's certain levels of certification, right, Doctor. Richards?

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: Yes, Brandi Brown is a GEI-eight mentor. So she has a certification, and there are certain requirements similar to what you were saying, like cardiologist. Yes, she has advanced levels of training.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: Specific to trans care?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Correct.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Okay.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: Yes, so we brought her into the contract. The other thing that we, and so Doctor. Richards was talking about, there's a monthly transgender care committee that does a number of things that reviews people in different stages of transition, reviews that with the DOC, reviews it internally, people can join, our providers can join and ask questions. I will say hormone management, for example, is something we expect all of our providers to do, but they do not all have expertise in it. To be very clear, I do not have expertise in it, though we've been learning together. We've been using community self identified experts in the medical community locally, and that's been somewhat helpful, people with more experience. However, those people don't have experience in corrections, and that can make things a little challenging, though we've been navigating that. Our new assistant state medical director, I'm really pleased to have him, he joined just a couple weeks ago, He does have significant expertise in the community, so we're now going to put him as the primary mentor on hormone management and some of the more medical decision making, so as a resource for our folks on the front line who are trying to help people through these transitions. I think there's some

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: questions. I

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: don't know how to get into this, so forgive me if this is clumsy. And, Jen, I really like what you've had to say. Don't be rude.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: It's okay. Look We confused a lot.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: This is is threading the needle. And I brought this in when I introduced the bill to the committee because we honor identity, right? And when somebody tells me this is who I am, this is my preferred name, this is my pronoun, these are my pronouns, right, the ally in me responds to that. And you brought that in, and I'm not going to do it justice how you mentioned how that pervades your approach. And I appreciate it. And Josh, you talked a little bit about folks who have misused the process by which they can claim an identity to avoid going out of state. So this is threading the needle that I think is going to be very difficult. And Kalani brought this to the conversation as well, the need to thread this needle so that we're protecting all of us, was her language. We all deserve protection, those of us who identify as trans, those of us who identify as cis in an environment such as that we find at CRCF. Where is the intersection? I don't know who wants to talk about this. Where is the intersection between all of the psychiatry work, medication, hormone medication, counseling, how does that fit in with the process by which DOC is making decisions about who is housed, where they claim they want to be housed, that it's not misused to a similar degree that you talked about worry about just something as simple as not wanting to go

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: out of state. Or wanting to rape them. Right. Because we have had a case when folks say that part out loud. We have a man out of state right now who said, No, I'm not transgender, but I want to be housed in Chittenden because homosexual men who are incarcerated are around their preferred gender. I like to have sex with women. I'd to be housed in Chittenden. We can No. By the Let me

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: add one more wrinkle to this before you jump in, and I appreciate you going there. We're very soon within years, within a few years, to be talking about designing a new women's facility. And if we do that well, and I hope we do, it is going to be a place where people would prefer to be as compared to the current CRCF, as compared to Northwest. So that's going to be part of this as well. Simply, I want to be in a 2028 facility rather than a 1982 facility. There is

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: a needle to thread there, we do it in a couple of different ways. The first is that identity, pronouns, name,

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: those are low hanging fruit.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: That's low hanging fruit, but it's also I'm not arguing over it. If you say you are, when we move to those decisions around accommodations though, and around housing and placement, then we have to start looking at those safety things. And there is a discretionary judgment in that. Sometimes folks don't say the quiet part out loud. And so we have folks who have histories of sexual assault in the community, and we have to to weigh that out, and that's not always easy. And there are some cases where it is blatantly apparent this person belongs in Chittenden, and where it's blatantly apparent they don't. And there are cases that fall a lot more in the middle and that are challenging. And there are folks we've put in Chittenden and then subsequently decided this didn't work and removed them. So I think it is a needle of thread and it's a very challenging needle, and it's also one of the reasons why we don't make the medical decisions because the way we address that and where our pieces of that are, are going to be very different than I think where Doctor. Richards and Doctor. Mueller know.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: When we started this work, I was, because Priya required it, so the conversations were rooted from Priya. I can tell you the first meetings we had, it was executive leadership out of central office and superintendents saying, if you do this and you allow men to go to a women's facility, you're gonna have all these men saying that they're trans female to go to a women's facility. And I said, challenge accepted because here's the part you're forgetting. The majority of victims of sexual abuse in corrections is men. And it's because we have more men inside and it's because men are more prone to physical sexual violence because it's a power and control thing than women. So we don't see a lot of women getting raped and chipped in because that's not women's go to.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: You're So To be clear, we don't see a lot of people getting raped in our system, period. Yes,

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: point. Not a I'm

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: not saying it has never happened, but we run a remarkable So safe

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: you're forgetting the part that what keeps men safe inside is that masculinity and that perception of masculinity. And so someone saying they're transgender female, a cisgender male knows that that's a risky thing to say. And whatever judgment they have in their own head, they now know someone else can have that judgment. So not every guy is gonna wanna say they're transgender female because they know what comes with that. And so not surprisingly, when we started actually housing people according to gender that were transgender, intersex and gender diverse, the floodgates did not open. We did not have a bunch of men coming forward and saying they're transgender female, and then the couple that we have had, we're very transparent about it. So when we think about it, it is not a thing people are generally willing to say because they know it's not a good idea. Now, that's not something that I think we should be proud of, but it is a reality. The other thing is I want to be very mindful while Chittenden is important, we have transgender females not at Chittenden, and we have transgender males not at Chittenden. So when we're talking about the population, we have to be talking about all of the facilities and not just Chittenden. But you are 100% right that we have to look at this and we have to look at that risk and we know that people are nefarious. We know that people just like you go to a hotel and you take the shampoo because it's free and you're like, I need it. No, you don't, but you take it because it's free and it's there. And so when you give people something, or they think it's something they're getting, they ask for it and they request it. And so we meet the accommodation we can immediately. And then if we have concerns that someone is using it in an antisocial and nefarious way, then we buy time in an appropriate way where we say not yet, we don't wanna move you yet. You just got here, you've never identified before. We're not what's going on with you. Now, that doesn't mean that we think necessarily you're going to go try and sexually abuse people. It could be that we're concerned there's something else driving this. And the other thing that happens uniquely in corrections, if you look at the history of PREA and where it came from and the testimony before the Prison Rape Commission, before PREA was signed into law in 2003, it was extensive history of sexual trauma in correctional institutions and these victims were talking about questioning their sexual orientation and questioning their gender identity because of pervasive sexual abuse. And so the transgender population in the outside world and the transgender population in the confinement setting is not the same always. And that actually showed up at Chittenden when we returned folks from Mississippi who had been long term out of state, came into the system as men, identified now as trans females, then encountering folks who were trans male at Chittenden who had come from the street and not from, there was a little battle and a little push and pull. And we heard things like, you're not really transgender, I am, you're not, because it was rooted in a different place. We have not really done and Josh and I are on a national group talking about this very issue. And as a PREA coordinator, I have brought this up that there is more work to be done around sexual trauma in correctional facilities, and its connection to gender identity and sexual orientation changes in long term male populations, specifically males, because how we respond to these folks is very different, because they are not folks that have identified as trans their entire lives. This is connected to trauma, and then the care that goes into it is more mental health. I understand gender dysphoria is a mental health diagnosis. We know that came from a place to be able to provide care and provide medication where folks couldn't have it restricted, not because you're mentally ill. We're talking about folks who are mentally ill and are transgender, and then that is a very fine balance that we It's why the mental health and medical folks that are on our team are so clutch because we have to figure out, is this being presented from your mental illness and your mental health or is this a gender presentation? Because it's

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And that's not that's not an or, very often that's an and.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: It's very challenging and that's why, and as I speak, I may prove why I'm not the expert in this, but that's So if you have somebody with multiple mental health diagnoses and then did something to get them in trouble with, say, somebody underage, and then it's requesting to look like they're underage victims, That's very challenging. And I'm not going to venture Or you have a trans man on testosterone who's getting violent. Well, testosterone causes violence. But is this person's testosterone what's making them violent? Should we lower testosterone? We keep it? I actually don't The answer isn't very individual and I don't have the expertise. We are bringing in outside experts to help us with that, and you're exactly right. What our community experts tell them, this is what I would do in the community, and sometimes that's very helpful, sometimes it isn't because the community population is very different. It's very challenging.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: And when you add on to that, that it's not a one size fits all, people don't identify as transgender where the end is, I'm gonna have surgery. Not everybody wants surgery, not everybody wants hormones, not everybody wants anything. And so we are having to balance all

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: of that out. We've seen an increase, especially the last couple of years of folks who identify as non binary. And even when we said this is a non binary and there can be trans, we still sort of put it in a binary box, right? And now there's folks saying, well, I'm not, and I still only have two boxes. Know, we have male facilities and we have a female facility, and those things are very difficult. I think threading a needle is

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: a great analogy. And I think the most important thing is for you to hear from us in a way of, we all have to pony up, There's, you gotta put your money where your mouth is, is that we are committed to having those conversations and threading that needle. We do not accept, for example, sometimes we'll get a plan from a facility where they'll say, we aren't recommending this person go to a female institution because their victim was a woman. Okay, we have women at Chittenden who victimize women. That's not good enough. Give me more. Now, it doesn't mean that that is something that would prohibit or something that would make it fine. You gotta dig a little deeper. You gotta give me more than that. And so these are the conversations that we are absolutely welcoming and having. And when we go into these, we are not the answer is no automatically or the answer is yes automatically. We are really trying to do a comprehensive staffing while also dealing with people who've just walked in, they're detoxing, they don't feel good, they watch the same TV shows and news stories you do so they don't feel safe. So they may ask for one thing and then ask for something else. And we know with transgender individuals and societal perception, it's viewed as a mind change. You're just changing your mind because you don't like how you feel today. So when folks then change and answer, it's then exacerbated by that. And so all of these things are what we kind of signed up for, I guess, because other jobs would be boring. But we understand it in the end, we have to look at their safety and then the safety of others. And sometimes, you know, we had one case that we staffed where literally this person is trans female, but they're attracted to men and they were engaging in sexualized behavior in the men's facilities. So we said, fine, we're gonna send you to the women's facility because you're not attracted to women. And guess what? No more sexualized behavior, which lowered the risk for them. They weren't getting in trouble for having sex and other people weren't getting in trouble for having sex with them. Now that feels a little atypical, but that is exactly the decision making that we're doing.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And Jen mentioned that her and I both are part of a national network through the mox group that deals with and works on these issues. Nobody has a tool. Nobody's come up with a tool. We have classifications and breaks for a whole bunch of things. Nobody's come up with a tool for this that they're comfortable with and that they think works. The gold standard, to the extent that there is one, is individualized assessments. Actually, it's called an emerging best practice, because as a profession, we don't have this perfect yet. This is still a work in progress. And so it's to identify emerging best practices. And right now the gold standard is that individualized assessment. Just because somebody has Crime X doesn't automatically mean they can't go, but it's certainly something to look at considering what is their history of violence against women, their motivation for going, how have they survived in a mental state, all those sorts of factors come into play.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: One of the solutions that Carmine? Yep, her name

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: is Carmine.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: Kalani, thank you, for she. Kalani had suggested, and I'm curious how this has worked in other states, it would be a trans housing unit, but to the complexity that you're discussing, and I don't know, but it just doesn't seem like because there's no one trans person, there could be no one trans person.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: It's actually prohibited by pre.

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: It is. There we are.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: What's prohibited?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Having a designated unit or a unit or facility. Doesn't Colorado have something? So the only exception is if you have Consent decree. Thank you, a consent decree. If there was a legal case that said you are required to have it, then you will. Yes.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: And the reason is exactly what you said is there's no one way to be transferred non binary and folks have different needs, they have different programming needs, medical, mental health needs and so to say because you have this one thing that you're similar in, you all have the same needs and belong in the same unit, just doesn't work. Especially with our population, we have 14 as of the January 22, when I ran the number 14, they certainly don't have the same units. I can't just put them in

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: the same unit and say, That's good. When Priya made that decision, it was because we know the history of corrections. We don't know what to do with you, so you all just go over here. And then you put them all in one unit and then you're like, okay, well, you're gonna wreck by yourselves. And since you're one unit of this small amount, everyone else gets more rec time, everyone else gets more programming and this unit wasn't getting it. And so when you look at, if you actually read the whole preamble and all of the standards, that's where it's rooted from. They were saying, no, no, no, no, you can't just dump them all in one unit and then call it good. So it's one of those like good idea, but now in a time where some of the states, it actually is beneficial and you often hear from the transgender population, it's a thing that they actually request, we can't do it. And so there's some

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: There's also unintended consequences. So New York, quite a while ago, did, we're gonna have a special unit for homosexual men because we know that they're at risk. And what it ended up being over time was a protective custody unit for folks who were dropping off gangs because the unit was less violent. Nobody thought of that, but how do I know you're homosexual? Say you're homosexual. And so they ended up with this unit with a designated purpose where folks were homosexual because that's a place that feels safe, because I'm not going to get stabbed by other gang members. So whenever we start doing things in corrections, we run into those, you have to think through those unintended consequences where folks might use the system to meet other than the civil society.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So in this bill specifically, the first thing that I was like, Oh no, was the single cell, because, so women, cisgender women don't generally request single cells, cisgender men do. I think it's probably the toilet in the room because the women could use a communal bathroom. So it's fair, I get it. If that's something we're required to do, we are gonna have ton of cisgender men saying they're transgender just so they can get a single cell because they don't want to have to share their cell and a toilet with another person. Totally get that. Now, not to mention the fact that we don't have enough single cells to be able to do that. And I also think the other thing is that we currently house transgender individuals with cisgender individuals and we don't have assaults occurring. And as a matter of fact, you actually give a person an opportunity to realize, Oh, that thing I thought isn't real. And you provide almost a little bit of a built in security net because if Josh is my cellmate and he's transgender and he's a decent person, when I hear somebody making comments about him, I'm gonna be like, shut up because he doesn't stink up the room, he doesn't snore, and we get along and he's clean, so shhh, this works. And you actually end up with that peer sort of advocacy and you give people the ability to show you who they really are. And assuming that all folks in the unit are unsafe for transgender folks isn't it hasn't proven

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: to be true.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: Do we have some folks?

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Are unsafe, and no doubt there. And which is why we have to make very specific decisions about filming plates.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So I'm gonna take one more question, and then we have to wrap this up because other testimony and other issues and people are waiting for us. Then we need to work with you folks because I know you had some language changes proposals. This is good background that we've had, but I wanna schedule some time probably early next week. I don't think unless we do it Friday morning. But I really wanna have a chunk of time to really get into the language that you're

[Dr. Jim Yuliger (State Medical Director, WellPath)]: Chair, that was my exact question.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: Do you both have notes you can share with us?

[Kevin Winter (Member)]: Oh, yeah. Think Kevin Yeah. Okay, good.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: One more, too, just for background. Yep. And just as we're leaving and looping back to Priya real quick there, right? Without getting too much of the national politics, this administration has been clear, right? Throughout government, gender is binary. And we've seen it in education. We've seen it across state government. Sort of the conform with us or else. So I guess the question is, what does or else look like for the federal government if they don't agree with what we're doing in Vermont? I know we don't have much federal money they can keep hostage. Correct. But if they ask for information, what information do we have? Do we give it to the federal government?

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: So it's the opposite. They're actually not asking for information anymore. And one point of clarity from the memo that went out from the PREA management office of OJP, that was a direction to auditors not to use the standards connected to transgender, intersex and gender diverse individuals for whether you have met a standard or not. So those standards are no longer The auditor is no longer counting that as a pass fail, if you will, for a standard. However, the Federal Prison Rate Elimination Act has had no changes because an executive order cannot change a federal law. It actually says that in the executive order. So PREA still exists. And if we as a state are certifying every year compliance with PREA, we are bound to follow all of those standards. So as of right now, nothing has changed for us except that my job and my team, our job is harder because the transgender standards, our auditor is no longer allowed to audit. So now in order for us to determine certification, my team has to then develop a system to audit those standards so that we can then say, yes, we're certifiable or we're not.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: But the other piece of that is, and we had this conversation with a bunch of other folks, if the standard went away, if they just struck that standard, we can still decide to do There's a number of things we do in Vermont that are not part of any national standard that we believe are best practice. That includes some elements of our policy that go beyond what is required by the PREA standards. If the federal government said, flat out, cut out any reference to transgender in PREA, we still have the ability and authority to make policy decisions available in our best practice. That was one of the first conversations I think we had with our executive team when some of the messages came out of the executive team is, this is what we believe is best practice for folks in our custody. This is how we want to do business. And I actually was okay with the memo that came out compared to what I thought it would have been because it didn't say stop doing this. It said we're gonna stop looking at whether or not we do this. Okay, fine. Whether you look or not, we're still going to do it. I was more worried the memo would be more forceful and say that shall not. And then I think we'd be in a

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: harder bucket. And we are still doing all the same work. There's been no direction for anyone to change anything. And we are still doing the same ways of measures. So the old, there were documents we had to submit that included numbers of transgender individuals. We are still tracking that because if we're gonna make public statements that this population is at risk and we wanna actually measure the risk, we have to keep counting regardless of what the federal government is asking for. So we are still doing that work internally. And there's no, because of the certification process and because PREA has not been changed, there's no penalty as of right now. The one population it's challenging for is the federal folks coming into our custody. Because if a person in the federal system identifies to staff as a specific gender identity, we have a process and then so do they and they're not the same.

[Conor Casey (Member)]: That makes me feel better. I still think the storm is coming.

[Jennifer Sprafke (Director of PREA and Constituent Services, Vermont DOC)]: It's on the list to be reviewed in Congress and we're expecting that to be changed. And I will say this as a shout out. Haley's like, I know, is what states are doing. So I'm on the National Preah Coordinators Association. And one of the things that we have talked about is that there are states moving to basically take the language of Korea and adopt it into state law so that no matter what happens at the federal level, we would be in There are also states going

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: incarcerated with the opposite direction.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we need a lot more conversation.

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: One quick, yeah, Doctor. Richards, did you say that WellPath has a policy on GAC, gender affirming care?

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: Yes, it does.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: Can you

[Troy Headrick (Ranking Member)]: send that to Tate, please?

[Dr. Allison Richards (Psychiatrist, WellPath; Oversees Vermont contract)]: I will have to make sure I can share it. But yeah, let me look into that.

[Josh Shrethberg (Deputy Director, Facilities Division, Vermont DOC)]: That's all.

[Alice M. Emmons (Chair)]: So we need to close this. What I want to do while everyone is here, to work with Tate to schedule, to contribute more background information if we need it, but also particularly to work through the language in five fifty because we did have some recommended language change. So I wanna make sure that we spend a lot of time on this. I think we're gonna need two hours work. I don't think an hour and a half is going to do it. I'd like to schedule a block of two hours. I'd also like to have a time during some of that that our legal counsel can be here as well. So probably at the beginning of next week, if possible, If people could circle around Tate to kind of figure this out while you're here, would be very helpful for that. So we need to close this one off because we have to shift gears to pretrial supervision. So what I'd like to do is take a quick five minute break.