People Against Prisons Aotearoa

[Transcript of 3 News’ video coverage of Jade’s transfer on the 27th of August]

Presenter: Transgender activists are celebrating tonight after the Department of Corrections agreed to move a trans woman from Rimutaka prison to a women’s facility. Jade Follett is behind bars for stabbing a man who stalked her. Amanda Gillies reports.

[cheering]

Amanda Gillies, voiceover: Hugs instead of hunger. Transgender activists end their protest - their hunger strike - after news this afternoon that Jade Follett will finally from a men’s to a women’s prison.

Jennifer Shields: We’re really happy, we’re glad that this action has been taken real quick. We wanna hear back when she’s been physically transferred, we wanna know that she’s safe in a women’s facility as soon as possible.

Gillies, voiceover: Rewind five hours: Jennifer Shields began her hunger strike on Auckland’s K Road, furious Follett was in a men’s prison, demanding she be transferred to a women’s facility. Follett is transgender: born male, now female.

Gillies: She lives as a woman?

Shields: Yeah, definitely.

Gillies: And she considers herself a woman?

Shields: Yeah, 100%.

Gillies: And she wants to be in a women’s prison?

Shields: Yeah, she’s a woman, she should be in a women’s prison.

Gillies, voiceover: Life behind male bars had been tough, she said, for Follett.

Shields: She says she’s had trouble from, particularly in the remand facility she was in, trouble from some prison officers causing some problems, and a couple of inmates in the current prison, but she says she stood up to them and they kinda backed down.

Gillies: Last month Jade Follett was sentenced to 21 months jail for stabbing a man she’d met on a dating website. At the time of sentencing, she’d already spent six months behind bars, most of that in isolation or segregated. Follett said she applied to be transferred about two months ago; Corrections said it only received the request at the weekend. By 2pm today, following media attention, the transfer was confirmed, the fifth for a transgender prisoner over the last 18 months. Amanda Gillies, 3 News.