I Married My Transgender Wife In Prison I LOVE DON'T JUDGE

WHEN asked ‘how did you meet?’ Adriel and Monae Alvarado’s story is like no other. The couple met at SCI (State Correctional Institution) Chester, a medium security male prison in Pennsylvania. Both Adriel and Monae were inmates who first exchanged glances in the prison laundry. Monae identified as a trans woman and had already started to take hormone replacements before entering the prison but she hadn’t yet had surgery. At the time of her sentencing, it was policy to incarcerate pre-surgery transgender based on their gender at birth. When Monae and Adriel got together they came across opposition from both in and out of prison. From the staff and fellow prisoners inside the prison to family and fellow gang members on the outside world, the couple’s unlikely love story left a lot of people with a lot of questions. But two years into their relationship, Adriel proposed to Monae, in the prison yard with fellow inmates around them. The couple had to wait for Monae’s release before they could get married – there was no precedent for two inmates tying the knot. And now, five and a half years since they first started dating, Adriel and Monae have finally been reunited on the outside world, with Adriel finishing his sentence and getting ready to start a new life together with the wife he has yet to live with.