The British government has revised its prison guidelines to to require prisons to recognize inmates who identify as gender-fluid or non-binary.

Last year a trans woman, Tara Hudson, successfully petitioned to be transferred to a woman's prison in a highly publicized case just a few weeks before a 21-year-old transgender woman named Vicky Thompson took her own life in an all-male prison in Leeds. (Thompson's request for a transfer to a women's prison had been denied)

Over the summer, protesters lied down in the street during Manchester Pride to draw attention to the poor treatment of trans prisoners.

Vicky Thompson

Those events prompted the Ministry of Justice to collect statistics on transgender prisoners for the first time in a report that found that 70 transgender prisoners were incarcerated between March and April of 2016, or approximately .08 per 1,000 inmates.

But as Tranzgendr.com reports, the real number is likely to be much higher, since the data excludes prisoners who'd transitioned before going to prison, prisoners who hadn't had an official in-prison transgender case conference, and prisoners whose gender was unknown to prison staff.

The new policy, which includes requirements that prison staff receive training on how to protect the rights and safety of "all transgender and non-binary people, and not just those undergoing gender reassignment," is significant given that the UK still officially recognizes only two genders.

As understanding of gender as a spectrum and not a binary expands, the number of people worldwide who identify as something other than "male" or "female" continues to grow.

The guidelines also include guidance governing inmates who want to transfer to a facility that matches their gender identity, and stipulates that "regardless of where prisoners are held, they should be respected in the gender in which they identify [and] provided with those items that enable their gender expression."

The situation for trans men who are in the prison system can be precarious—while many can pass as simply "butch" in women's facilities, their safety would be serious jeopardy if they were transferred to men's prisons.

In the US, trans prisoners represent a disproportionate number of the incarcerated, and trans prisoners continue to face higher rates of sexual violence. According to a report from the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, nearly one in six trans people, including 21% of trans women, have been in prison at some point.

The Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that nearly 40% of transgender prisoners report being sexually assaulted or abused by either another prisoner or prison staff in the last year.

A number of incidents this year have put trans prisoners in the spotlight: In March, a trans prisoner in Texas was granted parole after filing a lawsuit for the years of sexual and physical abuse she suffered. This summer Chelsea Manning attempted to take her own life for the second time.

Just last month, the ACLU called for an official investigation after a trans male teenager committed suicide while being held in a female wing at a youth detention center in Maine.

The Department of Justice has issued new regulations to clarify guidelines for the treatment of trans prisoners, making it clear that it's a violation of federal law to assign trans or intersex inmates to gender-specific housing based "solely on their external genital anatomy."

That move, along with the UK's new guidelines, are certainly a step in the right direction, but as evidenced by this year's headlines, there's still a long way to go when it comes to adequately protecting the rights and health of trans, gender-fluid, and non-binary prisoners.