This article describes the official protocol and unexpected contingencies that motored data collection for a large scale study of transgender inmates in California prisons for men. The focus is on gender and sexuality as methodological confounds that, surprisingly and productively, ultimately served to shed insight into basic sociological questions as well address the policy questions that originally motivated the research. Drawing on serendipitously collected ethnographic data from a plethora of exchanges with experts, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) officials, researchers, and transgender inmates, this article reveals the categorization commitments and processes that permeate the lives of “the girls among men” in prisons for men. In light of these findings, the author argues for the value of adopting what she calls a “soft mixed methods” approach when doing non-ethnographic work designed to inform policy. To do so stimulates sociological imagination and ultimately provides more nuanced, layered, and complicated answers to policy questions while also providing insights into more basic research questions.
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