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Testimonial

United States: meeting my hero

Thoughts on good and evil

Alex, an Austrian, has been corresponding for two years with Xandan, a young trans man imprisoned in Texas. Through dozens of letters, Alex has come to know Xandan’s journey, from the death of his parents, his childhood spent in an orphanage, a history of drugs, a crime that he doesn’t recall committing, to his detention conditions at Lane Murray prison. Today, in their testimonials to Prison Insider, Xandan describes his detention conditions, and Alex talks about how they met.

This is a story of friendship between two people from different continents, one deprived of liberty and the other who is free.

Seeing Xandan's picture was like meeting an old friend, a long-lost travelling companion

One soul finding another

Some events in life are so significant that they are remembered as a before and an after; sometimes they are happy ones, sometimes sad ones. In my case, one of these events occurred when I came upon a picture of Xandan on my computer screen for the first time. I won’t describe this moment in detail now nor mythologise it. It was a very ordinary day at work. I was feeling somewhat dark and empty, not wanting to be part of this society and the system I was living in. So I began to look for someone to connect with. I was trying to find friendship, understanding, perhaps a bit of happiness in a world that is hard to fit in.

Certain people bring out the worst in you when you meet them; others make you simply feel good. Seeing Xandan’s picture was like meeting an old friend, a long-lost travelling companion; it was like a soul recognising another. I wrote to him that same day without even wondering why he was in prison.

Several long weeks went by before hearing from Texas. I remember how excited I was, and I knew, in my heart, that I had done the right thing by writing to Xandan.

I let myself enter into this journey with the hope of having a mutual exchange of letters, and I received in return much more than just a friendship. I feel an immense sense of gratitude and a certain… commitment?

What I felt can only be described in my language as Demut. The word itself comes from the old high-German diomuoti: “a desire to serve”. It also means, and above all etymologically, the state of a person who serves, made up of the words dionōn (“to serve”) and muoti (“feeling”), which also gives us the word that we use for “will, courage”. So, this word is as important as it is relevant to my situation: Xandan offered me more than friendship. He changed something very essential in me and continues to do so. I feel that the need to serve, which entirely came over me, is also helping me look at the world and my own existence differently. Without Xandan, I would never have experienced so many gifts like a new outlook and a sense of abundance, a richness, in so many aspects of my daily life. The will to live, that my language links so closely with devotion, that is what he brings to our friendship, his unconditional love, and his profound understanding.

I've received around 80 letters that gave me a small opening into a punishing world that never forgives

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Xandan is incarcerated at Lane Murray Unit, a state prison located in Texas. He tells us how a typical day goes by.

Read the testimonial

The other side of the coin

The first time I wrote to Xandan, I did not know anything about his extraordinary story, the extent of his case, nor his day-to-day living conditions. As far as Texas justice goes, Xandan is simply a number, a file, a verdict. Result: imprisoned for life, or almost. Perhaps some people who judge his deeds through the conservative Texan press narrative, find him guilty without seeking to understand more. But as for me, I see someone who is sensitive, caring, knowledgeable and a deep thinker, who offers me strength and love in whatever way he can.

Before our friendship, I knew nothing about prisons in the United States. I did not know about the abuse from guards who can be more dangerous than the prisoners. I knew nothing about the American justice system and the laws in Texas, but the person behind the prisoner ID number and the delinquency statistics has taught me a lot over the past two years. The person who is much more than the acts committed; who reads Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson1 and has an incredible writing talent; the one who thinks so much about the world outside; a person tormented by fears and doubts and who must stay strong to resist his living conditions. This person makes me look at things differently and allows me to understand what it must be like to be locked up 24 hours a day, alone, in a cell, all year long, with no lighting, no space, and hardly any air. The one who freezes in the winter, who is hungry, battles hopelessness and depression. The one who never sleeps for more than four hours because the cell where he finds herself is not safe.

Xandan’s life is in no way kind to her. His entire existence is reduced to the basic needs that we all have: sleeping, eating breakfast, lunch, and supper. On good days he can shower.

Over the past two years, I’ve received around 80 letters that gave me a small opening into a punishing world that never forgives. A permanent state, enduring, uninterrupted, daily. No matter what he does, no matter if he has changed during all this time, which in Xandan’s case, is already 14 years. As a human being, Xandan does not count. What counts is his crime. The person he is, the sum of his experiences, his scars, his childhood, and his motives don’t matter. The only thing that matters is the crime that led to his sentence.

  1. A famous female poet in the English language, born in United States in 1830 and died in 1886. ↩

Constant tension

After two years of deep friendship, two perspectives often overlap. One is the perspective from the outside, which I recognize as my former thinking. It is one that, from a distance and with no real knowledge, builds an opinion on prisons and prisoners. And then there is the one that Xandan offers me. Before becoming friends, I used to think: “When people break the law, they are punished accordingly. Once they have served their sentence, they are free to go. And if the crime is too atrocious, the law makes sure the person gets a long sentence”.

I realise now that prisoners like Xandan are punished far beyond the sentence that they received in court. Once behind bars, they are physically and mentally abused, and are denied access to health care and education. They are dragged out of their cells in the middle of the night, attacked by guards, verbally and physically abused for the colour of their skin, or their sexuality. Years pass and they are poorly fed, are beaten, are punished disproportionately, placed in solitary confinement often for offences they have never committed. They live lives that are crushed by an untenable pressure, under permanent tension, always belittled, and always humiliated. Deprived of any right to autonomy, they are also unable to have their own identity. It is impossible for them to be human, a person, a complex, multiple, unique being.

These punishments are hardly ever discussed. We talk only about the length of a sentence, very little about prison conditions. We talk about prisoners, but very little about prison officers and prison policy. We read very little, too little, about the psychological impacts of the physical and mental torture that goes on daily behind closed doors.

If I want to shower, I can do it

"He is my friend"

In many ways, these last two years have been very enriching, and I have learned a lot. I tell myself now, any chance I get, in the open air, when I can walk, wherever I want, that this freedom is precious. I can sleep without being afraid of something terrible happening where I am most vulnerable. I can live without pain or fear.

I can freely decide what I want to eat during the day and when to close the book I’ve chosen for myself. If I want to shower, I can do it. I can express myself in any way I want to. I can paint, sing, and go to a theatre or cinema. I can travel and plan my future freely according to my needs and talents. Each day offers me new opportunities and new possibilities for living a meaningful life that is worthwhile, free, safe, and surrounded by people who don’t judge or mistreat me whenever they feel like it.

Unlike Xandan, I am not at the mercy of others and a system.

I can give in to anger and rage without being immediately condemned and punished cruelly. If Xandan does that, he risks going into solitary confinement for a long time. People will never identify me only by my mistake, my worst mistakes, nor evaluate me by that part of me. I’m seen as a unique person, complex, and respected as such. Like everyone else, there are both good and bad things about me. This is what Xandan brings me: the capacity to see this richness in all its colours and dimensions.

The abuses of power and injustice take place in secret, behind closed doors, and in obscurity.

And yet...

In spite of the happy parts of our friendship, there has been deep sadness since we met. Always there, with me, every day. For me, Xandan is not a convict, not a prisoner, not an inmate. He is my friend.

He is precious, vulnerable, and extremely transparent with himself and others. Even if he doesn’t tire of pointing out the lack of good prison policies and inhumane conditions in the Lane Murray prison in his articles, I know there’s always someone there to punish him for his outbursts. It hurts just knowing that he is locked up in a place where there is nothing to look forward to, and everyone is trying to make his life as hard as possible.

The abuses of power and injustice take place in secret, behind closed doors, and in obscurity. Everything seems to have been taken from Xandan, yet, no one has been able to take away his will and courage to fight an overpowering system. He is fighting to improve the living conditions of prisoners and bring to light what the prison policies of many countries are trying to keep under a thick silence. For these reasons and so many others, Xandan is my hero, a fighter. He is a true friend who seeks the truth at any cost to make things better.

[EDITED ARTICLE]: Due to a misunderstanding, Xandan Gulley was misgendered in the first published version of this article. We have therefore corrected the article to reflect the gender with which Xandan identifies.
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