Mo Viviane

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)—independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it. Donate to sustain Prism’s mission and the humans behind it. This story was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit, the Economic Hardship Reporting Project’s New Narratives Fund. Evan Butler is a white trans man from the rural town of Campbellsville in the bluegrass state of Kentucky. He has a queer therapist who provides him with thoughtful and affirming care.

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)—independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it. Donate to sustain Prism’s mission and the humans behind it. For incarcerated people in the rural South, maintaining connections with loved ones and others on the outside has always required perseverance. From Beattyville, Kentucky’s Lee Adjustment Center, where he’s been incarcerated for six years, Lavar Melton described the prison’s dismal communications offerings.

Real journalists wrote and edited this (not AI)—independent, community-driven journalism survives because you back it. Donate to sustain Prism’s mission and the humans behind it. Jayda DaShay Jett Hester is a 45-year-old trans woman who was previously incarcerated at the Lee Adjustment Center in Beattyville, Kentucky, about 70 miles from where she grew up in Lexington. She entered Lee in 2023 and spent nearly a year and a half at the private state prison that holds more than 800 people.