JKRowling. Prepared to go to prison for women's rights.

I will not tell lies either.

Women tend to be less violent than men and are inside for theft and fraud, not violent and sexual offences, which makes it possible to have that petting zoo.

A sufficiently dangerous female prisoner can be transferred to the male estate if she cannot be held appropriately in the female estate This option has not yet been needed. Women's prisons are nicer because of the inmates. Some male screws rape female inmates (and IMO men should be barred from working in female prisons because of this), the nick's not nicer because the screws are nicer.

It's also interesting how very often the demand of enable unconditionally 'be kind' towards a female person is actually because that female person is actually indirectly serving the interests of a male person.

And to put it bluntly, female people, however they identify, are not a sexual threat to male people in male spaces. They're not the dominant group, and they tend not to threaten to rape or kill anyone, wave swords or sit wanking in plain sight. It's almost like female people have less power, and tend to treat other people with more care and respect, and it's a sex based thing rather than a linguistic illusion thing.

Yep. But in this case alpha is not a female person extolling women on at least two threads to ‘be kind’ without giving one fuck about the inherent misogyny of a male person telling female people to be kind so that male people can have whatever they demand.

Where 'be kind' is actually a demand with menaces for enablement.

Not co dependent thanks. Or up for being the member of an abusive relationship that always gets the shitty end of the stick. Without even a promise of everlasting rewards in heaven ffs.

Male people are free to have needs.
And I'm free not to meet them.

@Helleofabore though I accept that women have the worst of it, this is not just one way. "It all stems from 'just be kind' while suspending reality to accommodate a female person's needs" also applies.

The answer also isn't, and never was, forcing women to call a male individual a pronoun out of some kind of fucked up version of 'kindness' that only ever goes one way.

'Just be kind' they say, use our chosen pronouns even if you really cannot believe that males can be females and your entire language is prefaced on sex not gender.

'Just be kind' they say, let us into your single sex spaces because that would be a kind thing to do.

'Just be kind' they say, and celebrate a misogynist male who makes women and girls the target for their mockery and is lauded for it but imbeciles who cannot understand the deep seated misogyny of doing so.

It all stems from 'just be kind' while suspending reality to accommodate a male person's needs. Fuck that.

Women are not support animals. We do not exist to validate males, any males, whatever identity they believe themselves to hold; nor are we a resource to be exploited.

Sounds sensible, but this is actually a radical idea.

Society has always relied on women’s unpaid, unnoticed work, including keeping things peaceful — long before we were ordered to ‘Be kind’.

So the current demand for us to supply validation for this particular group of males is just an extension of our routine work in social lubrication. That’s why so many women go along with it.

Interesting to see, now, that women may have been pushed too far.

Brilliant to see her saying this!

Exactly. I've worked and volunteered in male, female and mixed youth prisons in more than one country. Everything from horrible, loud, ugly Victorian monstrosities to lovely ones with proper houses and beekeeping. I know which I'd prefer to b banged up in.

Is it the case that Labour will keep sex-based abuse and harassment as non-aggravated and make gender-based aggravated?

If so that is an indication that they a) don't give a shit about women and b) think that transwomen aren't women.

If they will make harassment of women aggravated, I'd say there are some TRAs in for a little shock. All those death and rape threats looking not so easy to shrug off.

@AlphaTransWoman I can tell you what the answer isn't and that is for women to be forced to tolerate men in their prisons.

No amount of rereading will help, Arabella. I can’t help hoping comments like these come from a bot.

I've been inside a men's prison. Was part of an education programme for lifers. Age range: young adult to an elderly man.

Prisoners stay much calmer and open to rehabilitation when offered opportunities, which in turn means that staff are safer, and the other prisoners are safer. I found the group I taught very engaged and they honestly just wanted to talk about anything that wasn't about prison, prison rules and prison life.

Programme slashed of course owing to staffing issues. (Education staff need to be guarded.)

If TRAs really gave a shit about male prisoners they'd campaign for increased staffing levels in male prisons.

So would I. I will not be forced to lie every time I refer to my son; that would be equivalent to lying to him, deliberately. It's bad enough finding myself trapped in dishonesty over someone else I can not correctly sex because of my discomfort with conflict and 'their' fragility over 'their' 'identity'.

It’s not just the charitable giving @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g - she is positively infamous for paying every last bit of tax possible & the two combined keep her a mere millionaire.

Oh for goodness sake @AlphaTransWoman - do you hear yourself? Women are not support animals. We do not exist to validate males, any males, whatever identity they believe themselves to hold; nor are we a resource to be exploited. The solution to the “problem” is either a separate space for TW in the male estate; or placement in the VPU (where a high proportion of TW prisoners are already automatically placed due to the nature of their crimes). As for gardens & pets, those are hardly unique to women’s prisons: Maghaberry (high security/Cat A) has a garden & prisoners are allowed to have pets - in 2017 they’d more there than at any other high security prison in the UK. Access to gardens & animals depend on available space & the conduct of prisoners/their level of privileges. Between 2002 & 2005 the number of prison farms in England & Wales was drastically slashed from 23 to 5, but farms are rather different from gardens.

Female criminals are treated with kindness and compassion

you really are a ‘women live life on easy mode’ incel twerp aren’t you?

read this and weep. I did

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-66339627.amp

Another interesting bit there: the idea that women are treated better and more kindly than men, and that TW should be entitled to that perceived more gentle and privileged treatment.

Bloody women. All the perks, all the time, even in prisons. Poor men, denied all the good stuff.

Please, dear Bob, tell me you of all people aren't pulling a "what about da menz"?

Here's the thing.

I think she's serious but I also think she's laying down a challenge.

It has been established in law that it is a protected belief to state that men can not become women because it's such a commonly held view and because of biological reality.

So if Labour decide to make a new law that using the wrong pronouns will land you in jail.

Think of the unintended consequences of this.

Imagine you have a 12 year old kid insisting they are trans. Then their parents refuse to use pronouns. The kid reports it to the police. Social services have to get involved and you end up with a pile of kids with parents in jail. Very vulnerable kids. What happens to them?

Or you have the rapist cases. Which I won't go into as it's been covered enough.

Or you have abused kids who are effectively criminalised if they state the truth.

Or wives who are in a relationship and this law is used to coercively control them.

Or you end up criminalising a bunch of doctors.

And above all else, I don't think the law will stand up in court well because it will clash with safeguarding and other rights. And you'll get a monumental cluster fuck which we and JKR can see coming a mile off.

JKR is a) drawing attention to say cluster fuck and b) effectively saying here, right take me to court, I'll lawyer up and it WILL be embarrassing for you Labour cos the publicity will be enormous.

It is a courageous statement and I think she means it and is prepared to martyr herself if necessary.

But it's also well calculated and grounded in the rational that should she be charged and taken to court it will cause 'scenes' and if it does end up with her being martyred and going to prison, the law will look so unjust to so many people, that there will be public pressure on Labour to sort the mess out.

She doesn't lose if she goes to jail. That's the thing.

Anyone with a brain cell in Labour needs to wake up. This woman isn't stupid.

JKR is an utter hero.

I'd go to prison for this too. They can't burn us all. I will not tell lies

Brilliant summary.

Also interesting to look at the core thoughts and beliefs behind the idea that TW should have access to women's prisons because they're (perceived as) nicer, with better facilities.

You can hear the 'it's not fair' and 'they get a petting zoo' (which is an American phrase, never heard here), in the same tone as MRAs talk about 'well you didn't go to war did you' and 'you get to stay home with children and not have to work' and 'you're allowed to cry', very blanket thoughts with little concept of the whole picture, just the grievance.

Envy. Perceived gatekeeping. The anger that women might have something better and if so men have the right to it.

Having been incarcerated in a women's prison previously, can I just say it's utter bollocks that they're nice fluffy places where there are pillow fights and doing each other's hair and 'looking out for each other' and all that slosh that men fetishise about women's spaces.

The apparent difference between women's and men's prisons is because one has women in it and one has men in it, and the two sexes behave differently. The way they react to someone who has "wronged" them broadly reflects the spread of what sort of crimes they're in for.

Women are less likely to be in for violent crimes and almost never in for sex attacks (rape itself being an impossibility without a penis), so when you put people who are not violent or sex attackers in a building together they tend to continue not being violent and not raping people. Which makes for a better environment (but prison is still shit).

If you put men in women's prisons that changes things, because men in men's prisons are more likely to be violent and/or sex attackers, so the people making men's prisons extra shit are men and they'll make women's prisons shitter if they get in there too.

It's bloody obvious really, it's nothing to do with wearing dresses or pronouns.