ABSTRACT
LGBTQ people are overrepresented in prison populations around the world in both male and female settings. As a result, the pre-pandemic structural inequalities which led to such incarceration have only served to replicate and further exacerbate inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is especially true of medical conditions known as comorbidities, such as HIV, tuberculosis, diabetes, obesity, and others. LGBTQ inmates are at higher risk from COVID, but also because of inadequate or delayed treatments while incarcerated. LGBTQ inmates are repeatedly denied early release in efforts to reduce imprisonment levels and are oftentimes mistreated due to their potential for COVID infection. In a new twist, governments are using COVID to over-police LGBTQ people as a means of punishing homosexual orientations and people with non-binary genders and transgender or transsexual individuals.
