Your Truth, Your Rights

  • Made By CUP With:
  • Community Partners
  • Tags:
  • Court System,
  • LGBTQIA

A booklet that explains the rights of incarcerated transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex, and nonbinary New Yorkers to safe housing and gender-affirming care in prison and jails.

The project team meets to discuss content for the project.

Transgender, gender nonconforming, intersex, and nonbinary (TGNCINB) people are some of the most vulnerable populations in jails and prisons and face even more obstacles in an already traumatic environment, like harassment from corrections officers and other incarcerated people. There are some housing options available to help TGNCINB individuals feel safer in prisons and jails but few people know these options and fewer know their legal rights around gender affirming treatment.

The Bronx Defenders’ LGBTQ Defense Project and the Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society collaborated with designers Chloe Chang and D Wang Shi Zhao, and CUP to create Your Truth Your Rights—a booklet to explain TGNCINB folks’ rights to safe housing in New York City jails and New York State prisons. It also highlights other rights that TGNCINB people have to feel affirmed in their gender identity and what to do if their rights are violated.

The guide will be distributed throughout New York City by public defenders. It will also be used in trainings for other attorneys community-based organizations that support TGNCINB people.

The project team gets feedback on the first design draft from community members.
Community members give feedback on a later draft of the project.

Check out the Project

The cover and a spread from Your Truth, Your Rights

Download a Free Copy

Click here to download

Project Collaborators


Special Thanks

Osha Brown, Stefan Outlaw, Miz Qitti Pugh, Saadiya Rothschild, Katie Wong, and everyone else who gave feedback.

Product Details

3.5″ × 5.5″ stapled booklet, 10 pages

Funding Support

Support for this project was provided by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and Council Members Brad Lander and Antonio Reynoso.