Scotland - New prison rules on housing trans inmates

Rhona hodge kiss for FM. That’s what I say

The BBC on this. I think the headline is misleading

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67613441.amp

But it does report on the number of men in Scottish women's prisons.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001t6b1/the-nine-05122023

Link to interview with Rhona .

80% of women in jail have been battered by men so badly they have a head injury? This isn’t news. The News interest is that no one has reported on it. People don’t know how vulnerable incarcerated women are because no one cares enough to report on them. It’s ridiculous.

80%! That is horrific.

Rhona Hotchkiss was absolutely superb on BBC Scotland the Nine. Unfortunately not yet on I Player but first item of the programme when available.

It's the appalling idea that instead of providing accommodations for vulnerable males in the male estate, vulnerable female prisoners instead be considered a useful resource to be utilised by the SPS.

They don't care about women. Their original policy was heavily driven by the Scottish Trans Alliance who have admitted they used it as essentially a testing ground for introducing self id in all public service.

Rhona Hotchkiss in her interview, reeled off the long list of categories of vulnerable male prisoners in the male estate.

There's already provision for vulnerable males that doesn't involve locking them up with females. We don't need a workaround.

I think my prev post might not have come across properly. I suppose I was suggesting that if enough individual women were classed as vulnerable, there would be no non-vulnerable women (I’m not explaining myself well but I hope people can work out what is in my head!) classed as suitable to be in with transwomen therefore transwomen have to go somewhere else.
I was trying to think of a workaround solution where womens’ needs were considered.

Was that Steph on the news….MR endometriosis in another role? Helen Joyce also , who was clear and unequivocal.

Rhona Hotchkiss has just been fantastic on the Nine.

Words were definitely not minced and it was great to hear someone lay it out so clearly.

80% of Scottish female prisoners have suffered previous head injuries, mostly through domestic violence -

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-57103702.amp

archive.ph/2022.10.04-232359/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/half-of-scottish-trans-prisoners-changed-gender-after-convictions-pftqbbhg6

www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/scottish-news/anger-trans-inmates-revert-males-25840252

Wasn’t there a trans woman who was all upset because they got ignored in business meetings once they had transitioned. All the women just gave a knowing look.

Back to the point - I feel this is giving the topic a lot of sunlight.
I do feel, and I know it won’t be popular, that a trans woman who would be in danger from men should be somewhere safe, but that doesn’t mean in a woman’s prison.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/30324dcc-746c-4619-9ee5-69e62041d95c?shareToken=8f2577a9b4081df58fff3a69cba0abb8

with share token.

I don’t think it even should be about proving individual women are vulnerable to anything in particular.

The point is that collectively female prisoners should be guaranteed single sex housing. We don’t need to justify that by finding counter examples of vulnerable individual women or whatever. it should simply be a fundamental right for all women that, should they be imprisoned by the state, they will be housed in single sex prisons.

Biological men, however they identify, will be housed in the male estate. If trans inmates are unsafe in the male estate, then changes should be made to the male estate to keep them safe.

No. Why should vulnerable women be forced to divulge their trauma or face being traumatised further? Is the comfort of a few men really that important? What level of trauma would be necessary to grant a woman safety? Rape? CSA? Physical violence?
I'd start with the presumption that EVERY woman in prison is vulnerable, if you'd looked at the statistics provided by a pp you would know that most of them are incarcerated for relatively petty offences, and a majority are victims of male violence before conviction.
So no.

Also from the graun

"Vic Valentine, the manager of Scottish Trans, welcomed that updated policy as “recognising that trans people in custody should not be considered to be a risk of harm to others simply because they are trans”, and supported decision-making “on the basis of evidenced risk assessment”."

Yes I quite agree Vic. Trans people should not be automatically categorised as high risk, just the male ones.

From the Guardian article:

"transgender woman, Isla Bryson – who committed two rapes while living as a man, Adam Graham"

Given what we know of the rate of misunderstanding what 'transwoman' means, how many people will correctly parse the above? It seems written to maximise the possibility of misinterpreting it.

Why should we even consider this? Just keep the men out of women's prisons, job done.

This is the Guardian's take on it

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/05/trans-inmates-with-history-of-violence-against-women-to-be-mostly-kept-out-of-female-scottish-jails

That headline 😠

Frood this is so true:

‘If they actually were viewed as women no one would give a fuck how they felt or what they wanted or what language they chose or what happened to them.’

The irony.

Possible in theory? Yes. Would they do it? No.

But the woman who got hurt would be a special kind of woman with a whole lot of protections other women aren't entitled to.

No one cares if women get hurt.

TRANS and more interesting people? There's a loud shouty lobby with scary boundary issues and a whole lot of publicity, money and powerful people dying to use the virtue signalling publicity involved.

Men matter, regardless of what they identify as. Women who identify as men matter too, although not as much.