New rules brought in across Rio de Janeiro's 52 prisons ban discrimination against transvestite and transgender prisoners and protect their gender identities while behind bars.

Transvestite and transgender inmates are now allowed to be known by their common - as opposed to legal - names, guaranteed access to conjugal visits, and transgender women are permitted to choose to serve out their sentences in a women's facility.

The Rio rules also guarantee access to hormone therapy and allow transgender women to wear lingerie, makeup and keep their hair long.

Under the new rules, transgender inmates are also spared humiliating strip searches in front of other prisoners and no longer need to remove their shirts for daily sunbathing sessions, considered as a security measure in some penitentiaries.

Claudio Nascimento, who heads the Rio Without Homophobia advocacy group, lobbied for nearly a decade in favour of the new regulations.

Coronel Erir Ribeiro Costa, the head of Rio's state penitentiary agency, says his organisation is happy to support transgender prisoners and that the simple changes made had no effect on prison administration but a large impact on the inmates.

AP TELEVISION

Rio de Janeiro - 8 July 2015

1. Close of bars and prisoners walking past

2. Close of barbed wire behind window bars

3. Wide of room in prison where transgender prisoners gathered with graffiti reading (Portuguese) "Educate for Freedom"

4. Pan of transgender prisoners

5. Close of two prisoners holding hands

6. Prisoner Danny Campos de Oliveira (sitting) and boyfriend

7. SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese) Danny Campos de Oliveira, 27-year-old serving an 18-month sentence for theft conviction:

"What they (prisons) were doing before this new law was marginalising homosexuals even more because they (transgender prisoners) would leave prison even more outraged. They (transgender prisoners) were bald and ugly, full of body hair because they couldn't use hormones, and they were revolted."

8. Wide of transgender prisoners talking to each other

9. Wide of transgender prisoner Estefanie Ferraz

10. SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese) Estefanie Ferraz, former prostitute and transgender prisoner:

"I've been out to sunbathe once, in Japeri (another penitentiary), and they (officers) had me take off my shirt. Me, a transvestite with breasts (implants), I was humiliated. But that did not stop me from going. I went to show that I was not going to be oppressed and that there is legislation to protect us."

11. Close of security cameras outside prison

12. Close of sign reading (Portuguese) "Evaristo de Moraes Prison"

13. Wide of prison exterior

AP TELEVISION

Rio de Janeiro - 2 June 2015

14. Claudio Nascimento head of "Rio Without Homophobia" being interviewed

15. SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese) Claudio Nascimento, Head of "Rio Without Homophobia":

"If, in Brazil, regular prisoners already struggle to access all these aspects of citizenship and rights, imagine a gay, lesbian, transgender or bisexual prisoner. I always say that they already have an invisibility regarding society. Transgender prisoners have a second layer of invisibility."

AP TELEVISION

Rio de Janeiro - 3 June 2015

16. Nascimento talking to Erir Ribeiro Costa Filho, head of Rio's state penitentiary agency

17. SOUNDBITE: (Portuguese) Erir Ribeiro Costa Filho, head of Rio's state penitentiary agency:

"Today, we are glad to help this group. The changes that were made are so simple. We have told them (transgender prisoners) that they have those rights, because even a simple haircut represents a lot to them and it does not interfere in the penitentiary's administration system."

AP TELEVISION

Rio de Janeiro - 8 July 2015

18. Prison guard closing gate, push in as he walks away