Tanya's Restitution & Parole Fund

Hi, my name is Carrie Monahan and I am raising funds for my friend Tanya Rochelle, who is currently incarcerated at California State Prison - Sacramento. Tanya has a parole hearing coming up in December which will determine if she is eligible for early release. She also owes over $4,000 in restitution, accrued during the two decades she has been in prison. The funds raised on this platform will go toward paying off her restitution and helping her transition into the outside world once she is released. If Tanya is paroled but still owes restitution, she will have to stay in the state of California, which she does not want to do. Tanya has no family on the outside and would like to move to New York where she can receive my support.

In the summer of 2020, Tanya and I met through the abolitionist organization Black & Pink's pen pal program (https://www.blackandpink.org/penpal-newsletter/), which partners people on the outside with LGBTQ+ individuals who are incarcerated. Incarcerated since 2004, Tanya is a transgender woman who has spent nearly half of her life in men's prisons, where she has faced regular physical and sexual abuse, as well as months at a time spent in solitary confinement over the years. Many of these periods in solitary were retaliatory measures from transphobic guards in response to Tanya advocating for herself as a trans woman. The most recent, for which she is still in solitary, was Tanya's decision to have me file a grievance with the warden as well as the CDCR's PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) coordinator after she requested that a female guard (as is protocol) strip search her and was met with physical violence and humiliation, forced to spend the next several hours in a cage in her underwear, a male guard having forcibly cut through her clothing with scissors.

Tanya has not had an easy life. Born in New Orleans and adopted by a religious family, she was outcast as a pre-teen when she began expressing her feminine gender identity and told her parents that she felt she was a girl. Living in the Bay Area at the time, Tanya, not yet 12 years old, made her way to Skid Row in Los Angeles, where she banded with other transgender runaways and became a sex worker. During this period, Tanya faced homelessness, food insecurity, and regular violence--from clients and police alike.

Tanya is not only the most courageous, but somehow, despite all she has gone through, also the most spirited and generous person I know. At her previous facility in Vacaville, she started an LGTBQ+ choir, and at her current facility, she regularly cooks (with her hotpot!) dishes like gumbo, burritos and mac and cheese for other individuals on her block.

We have spent hours on the phone talking about the music of Whitney Houston (fittingly, Tanya's favorite song is "I Didn't Know My Own Strength"), our shared love for guacamole and fascination with Wendy Williams, our favorite recipes, astrology (she's a Pisces), dating and relationships (she's a romantic at heart), memories of her beloved late sister Natasha, her love of waterslides and rollercoasters, and countless other topics. Tanya has enriched my life in so many ways, and I know that we will be lifelong friends.

Post release, the road for Tanya will be difficult. She will have to navigate housing and employment--made much more difficult by the fact that she has a criminal record. As a survivor of stage 4 colorectal cancer, she will also have to navigate getting access to healthcare. Luckily, there are some amazing organizations in New York like GLITS (https://www.glitsinc.org/) and the Fortune Society (https://fortunesociety.org/) that I hope can be resources to her. Tanya hopes to work in the food industry and to be an advocate, particularly for homeless trans youth, in her community.

So much has changed since Tanya entered the criminal punishment system. At the time she was sentenced, she was 24 years old. She is now 41, and the outside world is going to an overwhelming place. I will do everything I can to help Tanya get back on her feet and start a new life in which she not only survives, but thrives.

Thank you so much for reading this, and I hope you consider making a donation!