Trans inmate forced to detransition as prison doctors try to inject her with testosterone

Sarah Jane Baker, the storied British transgender rights activist who spent 30 years in prison and castrated herself there in 2017 in her effort to transition, has been denied hormone treatments as she endures another stretch behind bars after a charge of incitement to violence, according to advocates.

Baker was arrested in July and reimprisoned for a parole violation after she spoke at London’s Trans+ Pride event, where she exhorted the crowd: “If you see a TERF, punch them in the f**king face.”

Related:

Marlon Wayans reveals that his son is transgender & how he wants him to feel free

“I think there’s a lot of parents out there that need to have that message.”

Despite being found not guilty of the charge in August, Baker remains in prison.  

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The Free Sarah Jane Baker (FSJB) campaign says the activist “is suffering severe menopausal symptoms” now that her estrogen treatment has been stopped by physicians at the high-security men’s prison (HMP) where she’s incarcerated.

“The only treatment she is being offered to manage this is testosterone, at a dose that would give her the same level as if she still had testes,” a campaign statement reads.

They say the protocol “amounts to a medical detransition.”

Baker is currently being held at the HMP Isle of Wight, a high-security men’s prison holding over a thousand prisoners, many of whom are sex offenders.

FSJB called Baker’s treatment and assignment to Isle of Wight “punitive and transphobic.”

A spokesperson for the healthcare practice providing service to the prison denied Baker’s treatment was discriminatory.

The prisoner’s current treatment is a “temporary measure while the healthcare team fulfills their duty of care to ensure that the benefits of any drugs we prescribe outweigh any risks,” they said in a statement, adding, “We are fully committed to providing appropriate care for trans patients.”

Baker, 54, grew up poor in South London among a family of 14 children and in foster care. She was sentenced at 20 to a young offenders institution after kidnapping and torturing a step-uncle. Soon after, she earned a life sentence for murdering a fellow inmate, and another concurrent sentence for raping a cellmate.

She spent 30 years in 29 different British men’s prisons. At one low-security facility, Baker managed to escape and elude authorities for over three months. She fathered a child in the interval.

Baker came out as transgender in 2013 while still in prison. She was denied hormone replacement therapy until she cut off her own testicles with a razor blade in 2017.

She was released on parole in 2019.

While still behind bars, where she says she learned to read and write, Baker earned notoriety for the publication of two books: Life Imprisonment : An Unofficial Guide in 2013 and Transgender Behind Prison Walls in 2017. She also created artwork that was exhibited after her release.

Before her latest arrest, Baker’s provocative declarations as a trans activist kept her in the spotlight. At the 2021 London Trans+ Pride event, Baker carried signs, widely reported, reading “Be Trans, Do Crime” and “Kill JK Rowling.”

In her statement to the court for the incitement to violence charge last summer, Baker told the judge, “It wasn’t my finest hour. I am quite annoying, but I don’t want people to be hurt because of something that I said.”

“I admit that I’m provocative and I can be obnoxious. I wish I could take them words back,” Baker added.