5 August 20 - 26, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER | CONTENTS | UNFAIR PARK | SCHUTZE | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | MOVIES | DISH | MUSIC | CLASSIFIED | T ransgender people face height- ened risks of violence and mis- treatment behind bars, especially if they are transgender women housed in men’s prisons. A re- view of research on transgender prisoners found that their expe- riences are “almost uniformly more difficult than other prison- ers,” including higher risks of discrimination, inadequate health care and physical and sexual violence. In Texas and elsewhere, transgender people are often isolated in soli- tary confinement as a purported means of protection. But experts have warned for decades that “solitary,” as it’s of- ten referred to in shorthand, can cause severe and long-lasting psychological harm. Terry Kupers, a psychiatrist and longtime researcher on solitary confinement, says prisons should “separate, not isolate” transgender prisoners who need protection. “Solitary is a false solution,” he says, to the problem of transgender people being victimized behind bars. But it appears that’s what’s happened to Gaby Vidana Pereyra, an undocumented 32-year-old trans woman from Dallas who was a sex worker before being arrested in 2021. On paper, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) doesn’t use solitary confinement; they call it “se- curity detention,” “administrative segregation,” or “re- stricted housing.” In some instances, prisoners are allowed to keep tablets — which may or may not have ser- vice — but their contact with the outside world, or even those in the same prison, is extremely limited. In 2021, amidst an alarming spate of murders of trans- gender women of color in Dallas, Vidana Pereyra shot and killed a man who she says solicited her for oral sex in a parking lot, then attacked her. (The gun, she says, be- longed to the man.) On the advice of her legal counsel, she accepted a 15- year plea deal in 2022, in which she agreed to give up her self-defense claim. More recently, after she told family and friends that she was attacked in prison, she’s spent much of the last six months in solitary confinement in multiple Texas prisons. Below, Stacey Monroe, an advo- cate for the trans community in North Texas and a friend of Pereyra’s, shares her dire concerns about her friend. It could’ve easily been that we had another trans woman murdered in Dallas. But my friend Gaby did what she needed to do to survive. She didn’t wake up that day in 2021 and think about killing someone. That’s not the kind of person she is. But for being a survivor, she was charged with murder. I first became involved with Gaby’s case in 2022. At the time, she was incarcerated and facing a long prison sentence. At first, the majority of my work involved talking with Gaby’s lawyer. Gaby had a court-appointed public defender, and she gave me permission to speak with her. The original plea offer was 30 years. Later, the offer went down to 25. Her attorney asked for 10 years in exchange for a guilty plea, and the prosecution came back with 20. During that time, I also reached out to the district at- torney’s office to plead Gaby’s case and try to get them to see that this wasn’t a murder. They heard me out, then recited the Texas Penal Code related to murder. That told me we were caught in a stark, black-and-white interpretation of the law. There would be no gray, no room for possible understanding. I started reaching out to the media. Many outlets seemed hesitant to cover the story, possibly because of the crime Gaby was charged with, or because she is a trans woman. Probably both. But the case eventually re- ceived some attention, and around the same time, the state reached a 15-year plea agreement with Gaby and her attorney. I was hoping for 10 or less, or a manslaugh- ter charge, but I was told this was the best-case sce- nario. So I focused on supporting Gaby’s mom — who is also undocumented — and doing everything I could to help Gaby while she is incarcerated. I didn’t know that a few years later I would be fight- ing to get her out of solitary confinement. In February of this year, Gaby was at the Mark W. Stiles Unit in Beaumont, a men’s prison notorious for multiple offenses in recent years. Their staff has falsified temperature records, and their guards have been formally charged with fighting prisoners or with allowing fights to happen. Gaby is HIV-positive, and she had already raised concerns about access to her medication Gaby Vidana Pereyra was imprisoned for a shooting death she says was in self-defense. Since being attacked in prison, she’s spent the last six months in and out of solitary confinement. WORRIED ABOUT MY FRIEND As told to TYLER HICKS for the DALLAS OBSERVER >> p6
