You see, Jane can be violent. She has fought with other children and with staff members wherever she’s been placed. But given her history, how could she survive by being anything but violent? Where, in her entire life, would this child have ever learned anything except to fight back? And how is placing her in an adult prison — where aggression, savagery and intimidation are the everyday tools needed to survive — going to help her heal?

It’s not enough to recount the torment she has endured. If we want to stop the cycle of brutality, we have to ask why the heavens rained down on this child. I believe it is because Jane is transgender.

Jane was born a boy. She began exhibiting feminine characteristics from age 5, and by the time she was 9 she knew that she was, in fact, a girl. Born into a society where blending gender lines was unacceptable, where God and preachers condemn, Jane didn’t have a chance.

Those with the best intentions felt it was their duty to beat these notions out of her. Those with the worst intentions felt it their right to toy with someone they considered a freak of nature. She was devalued as a family member, rejected by her peers and shunned by decent society. How could she ever survive except by learning that no adult could be trusted?

And yet, against all odds and reason, she has not destroyed herself. And her strength has brought her allies; protesters have marched in the state capital, Hartford, demanding her release. Gov. Dannel Malloy agreed, and at his urging she was moved on Tuesday to a cottage on the prison grounds. This is not a solution. Yes, it is better than a cell, but she is still just as isolated, and still being held against her will in a prison. And she is not receiving what she really needs — demands, in fact — and that is treatment. “I need to deal with the trauma I’ve experienced,” she wrote in an affidavit. “This prison cannot do that for me.”