Word.ws English Dictionary

V-coding

V-coding noun: the placement of incarcerated trans women in cells with aggressive cisgender male inmates (who will physically or sexually assault the trans women) as a form of reward or pacification for the male inmates and abuse of the trans women. Also the present participle and gerund of V-code.

Noun

V-coding (uncountable)

  1. The placement of incarcerated trans women in cells with aggressive cisgender male inmates (who will physically or sexually assault the trans women) as a form of reward or pacification for the male inmates and abuse of the trans women.
    • In a grotesque manipulation of power dynamics, sexual and carceral violence combine to produce V-coding: Prison staff “pacify” incarcerated men by putting a trans woman in a cell with them to “offer” sexual favors. But this kind of sex, usually unprotected, isn’t sex at all. It’s facilitated rape.
    • Studies and testimonies over the past decades define V-coding as “a central part of a trans woman’s sentence.” One survivor, Kim Love, described being forced to take a “husband.” Prison authorities frame this as violence prevention.2024 February 29, Zain Murdock, “How ‘V-Coding’ Demonstrates The Violence Of Rape And Prison Culture”, in PushBlack, archived from the original on 08 Feb 2025

Also used as

V-coding is also the present participle and gerund of V-code.

Questions about V-coding

What does V-coding mean?
V-coding means the placement of incarcerated trans women in cells with aggressive cisgender male inmates (who will physically or sexually assault the trans women) as a form of reward or pacification for the male inmates and abuse of the trans women.
What part of speech is V-coding?
V-coding is a noun.

Words near V-coding in the dictionary

  1. v-chip
  2. v-chips
  3. V-code
  4. V-coded
  5. V-codes
  6. V-coding
  7. V-cut
  8. V-cuts
  9. V-Day
  10. V-E
  11. V-E Day

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: V-coding (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “V-coding.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/v-coding. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.