In October 2017, Kanautica Zayre-Brown was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison for insurance fraud and other crimes. She is now believed to be the state's only post-operative transgender inmate.

Zayre-Brown, 37, was born male but says she always felt like she was born in the wrong body. In 2012, she began a series of surgeries to transition to a woman.

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She had her first surgery, a breast augmentation, in October of that year, and in 2017, she had an irreversible male-to-female surgical procedure.

That same year, she was sentenced to prison. She was assigned to Harnett Correctional Institution, a male prison, where she is listed as a male under her birth name, Kevin Chestnut.

"I am a female. I am going to be treated as a female. I want the state to recognize me as a female and treat me accordingly," she said.

At Harnett Correctional, Zayre-Brown now sleeps in a room with 37 men and shares a community shower and bathroom with them.

"It is very uncomfortable," she said. "I haven't been sexually assaulted, but I do fear that it may happen daily due to the situation that I'm in."

Since November 2017, Zayre-Brown has made pleas to the facility's Transgender Accommodation Review Committee and to the state Department of Public Safety asking to be moved to a female prison.

"I just don't want to be at a male facility anymore. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's right," she said.

Zayre-Brown has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a mental health condition where the person's biologically assigned sex can cause major emotional distress.

"In North Carolina, no one has taken accountability for it, and I'm constantly being pushed to the side with it," she said.

Zayre-Brown's family, including her husband, Dionne Brown, are supportive of her plight.

"I worry about her safety, and I worry about her emotional stability and also her mental stability in the place that she's at," Brown said. "Everybody loves her. Everybody should have a support system in their life, especially when they're good individuals."

Brown says his wife has remorse for her crimes and wants to come out of prison a better person.

"Her well-being is the most important thing. Her safety and her well-being is very important to me, and I'm concerned about that because she's a female in a male prison," he said.

Due to federal privacy laws, the Department of Public Safety can't talk about the specifics of the case, but officials told WRAL News that Zayre-Brown's case is under review by a multidisciplinary committee. Officials also said that each situation is reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Zayre-Brown still needs one more surgery to complete her physical transition. She is hopeful she can have that surgery in prison and is also hopeful that the prison system will move her to a women's prison.

She said that, if she is not moved, she intends to file a lawsuit against the state.