AUSTIN — Texas will clarify its policies regarding the treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inmates as the result of a settlement with a former prisoner.

Passion Star, a transgender woman housed in men's prisons, filed a civil rights complaint in 2014 alleging she was repeatedly brutalized during her time behind bars. Star said she asked to be housed separately for a decade before Texas prison officials put her in safekeeping.

The state of Texas and Star recently reached a settlement that was "agreeable to all parties," the LGBT law group Lambda Legal announced Wednesday.

"For years, I was raped and beaten in prison and when I asked for help I was ignored," said Star, who was released last year. "I was hurt, scared and thrown in solitary in hopes that I would be forgotten, but today I can be proud that I never gave up."

Passion Star, a transgender inmate at the Telford Prison in New Boston, has scars from being slashed by other inmates during various assaults. (2015 File Photo / The New York Times)

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice was and is in full compliance with federal law, and any changes to LGBT inmate policies were in the works before the settlement, an agency spokesman said. He added that the American Correctional Association has awarded the state for its prison standards.

"TDCJ did modify policy to provide further clarity that our practices and policy are officially in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act [PREA]," spokesman Jeremy Desel said. "They are changes that were already underway."

The state has two years to retrain staff on the changes, he added.

Advocates provided more details about its terms.

"The first one is improvement to the intake process to help ensure that vulnerable people like LGBT people are identified and steps can be taken early in the process to protect them," said Lambda Legal's transgender project attorney, Demoya Gordon. "The new policies also, hopefully, will make it such that TDCJ does a better job of getting vulnerable people into safekeeping where they are separated from people who may seek to abuse them" while still having access to full services.

Star will also receive an undisclosed amount of money as a result of the settlement. Gordon said Star hopes to use that "to launch this phase of her life." Now 34, Star was charged with aggravated kidnapping when she was 18 after she and her then-boyfriend made off with a car with the salesman still inside. They let the salesman out after about 40 miles. Both accepted a 20-year plea deal.

During her time in prison, Star said, she was sexually assaulted and beaten up by inmates and alleges that prison staff told her to "fight" or to stop "acting gay" if she did not want to be raped. Studies show LGBT inmates are far more likely to be the targets of violence and rape than the average inmate in the general prison population.

As of September, there were 573 inmates who self-identified as transgender in Texas prisons, according to TDCJ. This number represents an eightfold increase from three years earlier, when the department first began asking inmates about their gender identities during intake.

In 2015, TDCJ expanded transgender inmates' access to hormone therapy. Transgender inmates in state prisons in Texas are housed according to their sex at birth. This policy is different in federal prisons, where trans inmates can petition to be moved to a prison that conforms with their gender identity. The Trump administration has indicated that may change soon.

Gordon called the Star settlement a small step toward better treatment for LGBT people behind bars, and thus better conditions for all Texas inmates.

"What we've been able to achieve in this case, and what Passion has been able to achieve, by fighting back and speaking out, is really significant," she said. "It's a civil rights issue. It's an LGBT rights issue. It's a human rights issue."