Mary Harrington - Why are so many transgender prisoners sex offenders?

So someone like Isla Bryson with his wig and pink leggings is showing strong supporting evidence that he is living as a woman, despite his fondness for using his penis to rape women. And that absurd Canadian teacher with his enormous fake breasts would also be considered to be showing strong supporting evidence of living in his gender identity.

And mannerisms? What on earth do they mean? Interesting that they decline to say what these mannerisms actually are which supposedly express gender identity.

They've reduced women to a costume and stereotypical behaviours. Do none of the people who write this stuff ever read what they've written and go 'hold on a minute...'?

Yes, it really is ridiculous and sexist. And no I don't think they ever do, or do cheerleaders of "trans rights".

Identifying as women just to get preferential treatment doesn't explain why so many are sex offenders. Is there a similar number of sex offenders in those prisoners changing religion to get better food?

Prisoners absolutely do change religion to get better food.

Being trans just for the prison sentence is absolutely a thing.

And if you get to a sex offender only prison, no-one gives a shit about you being a sex offender, there's no threat of violence or lowest of the low as you are all the same.

You've completely missed my point. I was talking about physical differences. This is the only difference that matters if you're trying to argue about putting men in women's prisons. It's not pointless at all.

Men commit about 90% of violent crime and 98% of sexual crime. This is in the UK but it's much the same elsewhere in the world. Is this just a coincidence in your opinion?

Is a poster really telling women that:

"Going on about physical differences is pointless because they do not direct how we think, behave or how intelligent men vs women are" ?

Try telling that to the the thousands of women and children harmed every day by violent men able to use their physical strength to hurt, abuse and at times kill them. 😑

There aren’t really any human instincts that control us in regards to choosing violence, apart from the self-defence instinct but that is in response to a threat to life. It’s not the sort of violence we are referring to.

It would be funny if the consequences were not so serious wouldn't it? I want to laugh but ....

The biological differences are minor because biology does not direct our behaviour, thoughts, intelligence and so on. The whole female brain, male brain has been throughly debunked.

Going on about physical differences is pointless because they do not direct how we think, behave or how intelligent men vs women are.

Again, violence is a behaviour that is chosen. It is not instinct. It is not a biological compulsion.

Are these the same researchers that have come to the conclusion that testosterone confers no sporting advantage in males because some men who have lower testosterone are faster / stronger than some other men who have higher testosterone?

Also even if testosterone (in isolation) is not the cause of male aggression that does not automatically mean that socialisation is 100% responsible.
Where is the evidence for that?

Also you talk about the animal world but with our closest relatives (apes) it is the adolescent males that show the highest levels of aggression. Are these animals socialising their males to be aggressive or is there a biological factor involved?

Thanks for the historical reference. I'll look that up.

But men's biological differences from women are not minor.

Men are larger on average and much stronger than women (the strength difference is due, I think, largely to testosterone).

Men impregnate, women get pregnant. This is not a minor difference.

I have seen no evidence that men are forced to be violent due to their minor biological differences from women.

There have been matriarchal societies in Africa where women were just as violent as men. The ancient Sudan is one such example (Kush empire).

There is nothing in our biology that inherently makes men or women violent.

But is there anything in our biology which inherently makes men more violent than women? That's the important question.

If it were down to socialisation alone, then surely there would be some societies, current or historical, in which women are/were more violent than men, or at least equally so. Can you name any of these places where this is/was the case?

Yes I agree completely. I was addressing @RebelliousCow mostly to offset the wide spread impression caused by decades of sexism that all species are the same for mating.

Do you know of any human populations that do not have patriarchy? And how do those who take power, keep power?

Violence is a choice. The myth that testosterone is making men be violent is just an excuse for their continued violence. Violence which is deployed somehow coincidentally to hold on to power. Power over women and power over other oppressed demographics.

'They may even feel they have license to act more aggressively because they take testosterone.'

I think this is really likely. Like people having 'permission' to break more rules when they drink alcohol.

But we aren't other species. Humans are human. And I do not know of any human population worldwide in which female violence outweighs male.

Yes testosterone is important for sex drive, not for aggressive instinct.

Yes, we do hear many people repeating the old mythos of testosterone making you aggressive. They believe it to be true, so they see only what they believe. They may even feel they have license to act more aggressively because they take testosterone.

Males in just as many species do not fight to win over a female. Some build homes/nests and the female picks the best one. Some species the fattest male wins the prize. Other species it’s the best dancer that wins. Other species the male that brings the best food as gifts that wins. The old nature documentaries had a sexist bias in them in that it was more entertaining to watch animals fighting than it was to watch a female animals going house hunting and picking a male based on who built the best home to raise young in. These other forms of mating were largely ignored due to this sexist bias. It also fuelled the misogyny of the times in that it is only natural for males to fight and the female is the passive, submissive prize to the biggest, baddest male. They ignored all the species where the female has choice and chooses her mate, or mates as quite a few species the female has more than one male on attendance.

Yes. Violence is a psycho-social ill. There is nothing in our biology that inherently makes men or women violent.

The testosterone studies have been heavily criticised. One commonly cited is the fact that male convicts in prison have higher testosterone levels than do males not in prison. Researchers originally thought this was proof that high testosterone is linked to violent offending. The thought then that hormone levels were individual but did not fluctuate depending on psycho-social stressors. That has since been discredited after further research as testosterone levels are affected by such stressors- prison is very stressful and the fact that even convicts who had not committed a violent crime also had these same high levels.

But the old studies linger on and become part of a mythos because they simply become discredited by being outdated rather than so flawed they have to be withdrawn.

Do we think that happens as it's a easier for the judge as he doesn't have to make the decision of housing the TW in the male estate as they should be or the womens, which the TW will request and expect.... not saying I think it's ok to give suspended sentences or let them off, as far as I'm concerned they should be in a male prison or a totally separate one for the trans and non binary community.

You can be sent to prison for not paying the fine for not having a TV licence. I think this is what people mean when they say this.

You can’t be sent to prison for a TV Licensing conviction, but you can be sent to prison for deliberately refusing to pay court fines.

On this page under After your case has been decided
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/visit

The picture at the top of the article: quite clearly All Hail the Sacred Dick.

Just to pint out as well that Mary Harrington has repeated the incorrect statement about women being imprisoned for nonpayment of the TV licence, which they aren't. Its a high proportion of total female convictions but it's not an imprisonable offence. Sloppy.

I think this is my favourite question:

Are you homosexual, bisexual or other sexual orientation?

So everyone who said no has no sexuality at all??

I assume they meant to ask 'are you one of those weird non-straight people' but instead they've asked 'do you have a sexuality'. To call that an undergraduate level mistake is insulting undergrads. And this is producing the data on which the prison service functions? So depressing.

I think the challenge it offers is to the idea that 'being trans' is a innate thing that is the same across the population. There is quite clearly a group of unstable and disturbed men, usually violent, for whom an unstable sexual identity is part of that presentation - Barbie Kardashian being one of them. (I believe that BK is in fact imprisoned for violence rather than sexual crimes as such). I'm leaving aside the Karen Whites and Isla Brysons who look more like opportunistic advantage-seekers.

That really isn't the same as my friend's teenage daughter who socially transitioned to male in year 12 and has gone on to medical treatment, who is a long-nondiagnosed ND, and whose main interests are making textile art and reading.

But to say that it isn't the same is to challenge the narrative that 'being trans' is a biomedical or essential part of being human, rather than a highly cultural and psychosocial phenomenon that will wax and wane. So activists are stuck defending Tiffany Green as being exactly like Stephen Whittle to the point of referring to them both as 'trans folk' without even identifying their sex.