Just 5 trans women in women’s jails - Inside Time article

@RMNofTikTok thanks for your long reply.

Would you believe that at one point I wondered if you were sealioning with your question about how to keep transwomen safe? For me, centring women in this question is important for the pendulum swing back.

Without wanting to derail too much into language, Yes I disagree that "repeatedly calling a transwoman who has made a genuine effort to present as a woman a man [is] hateful."

Firstly, it can be hateful but I don't think it necessarily is. One example for me is: women who have suffered abuse and trauma at the hands of a man have the right to use male pronouns for him as a defence of their own naming of reality.

Secondly, people may choose to use pronouns exclusively in a sex based way if they do not believe gender identity exists.

Thirdly, I personally don't agree that it is helpful to quantify or qualify what "a genuine effort to present as a women" is. Who decides this? This relies on gender stereotypes and for me is regressive.

So the choice of which pronouns to use has personal and systemic consequences. Using sex-neutral language is also not always a neutral act as this is potentially biological erasure.

@itsfinallytime because it doesn't exist 😂 have the afternoon you deserve.

In your very first post on this thread, you said that the TW prisoner was appropriately placed in the female estate.

Bottom surgery or not, TW are men and do not belong in the female estate. The separate trans unit might be a solution for the very few non-sex offender / violent TW offenders, but I am sure you know about the success of the existing unit.

I'm not going to go back through the thread and pick out where you have clearly stated that.

I've got better things to do with my afternoon.

Your position on this has been clear throughout the thread.

@itsfinallytime I'm really worried about your reading comprehension difficulties. I have never once asserted that they should be in female estate.

No don't lie, you are saying you would prefer that they are in trans wings but in the absence of those the ones you deem to be no safety risk should be in the women's estate.

That is arguing for SOME men to be in female estates in SOME circumstances.

Nobody is arguing for men to be in female estates.

Nothing is going to change my mind on this thread.

If you centre women and women's rights to safety and dignity then no males will be in women's prisons.

Under any circumstances.

I cannot see a single argument for any male to be in a woman's prison that doesn't centre the male.

But who gives a toss that women are dehumanised by being used as a human shield when they are at their most vulnerable!

Oh, and we don't have enough pillows, either. And I can't increase my staffing ratios because I haven't got enough staff. And I can't move my recategorised Cat Cs on, because there are no places in the Cat C estate and all the locals are full to bursting, but James Cleverly wants to send people to prison for climbing on war memorials, creating even MORE pressure on spaces!

If you think calling a male human being "he" is dehumanising, we have very different views of men.

There is nothing dehumanising in correctly using sex-based language. Saying "it" is dehumanising, saying "he" is perfectly fine. He might like it better if people perceived him as "she", but we can't always get what we want. I'd like to be 2" taller and 3 stone lighter, but there you are.

Oh 100%! We had an elderly alcoholic in, and a prisoner on the wing was their nephew. I was in the middle of arranging social care, when the 2 of them came to me and said social care wasn't needed because the nephew was going to care for him. And actually the whole landing supported him, got his food for him, changed his bedding for him. It was actually quite sweet to watch and made my eyes leak! I don't think most prisoners are inherently bad people, most of them are victims of their circumstances, but sadly prison environments are not therapeutic and breed fear.

And the proportions are also important. There are far more men in prison than women, so a small number of the former being moved in with the latter has a disproportionate effect.

In 2022, before the Bryson rethink, there were 12 TW (excluding those with a GRC) in women's prisons in Scotland. Sounds a small number, but that was 1 in 20 of the total population in women's prisons.

How did transwomen end up in womens prisons? There was a landmark case years ago that determined it was a breach of human rights to not allow gender autonomy in prisoners. Unfortunately the pendulum swung too far and bad decisions were made by the prison services. HMPPS are attempting to rectify those now but progress takes time!

That landmark case was the beginning. If you trace the changes, and they are the same in different western countries, it goes like this:
Transwoman with bottom surgery, gender dysphoria, is sent to prison and sues to be put in the female prison. They don't have a penis, small risk, so they get sent to womens prison. No one asked the women btw.
Next is transwoman who has not had bottom surgery but does have gender dysphoria, and wants what the other transwoman has. Sues and claims it is a breach of his human rights to demand he has mutilating surgery to be allowed to go to the womens prison. He wins and off he goes. No one questions if it is a breach of human rights of women to be forced to share with men.
Next is a self claimed transwoman, no surgery, no diagnosis, demands he is also gets what other men have and off he goes.

Now the last group is being denied female prison, but as long as you allow the first group, you will have a difficulty saying no to the second group and then the third group has a wedge in again as well.

To stop the pendulum swinging all groups must be denied.

Trust me, I was quite surprised at how it panned out. My experience from 11 years in the male estate, mainly in LTHSE, and with substantial experience of sex offenders, was that it was a bad idea. I was expecting to have to move the person very sharpish, but it just didn't happen. A different TW, with a different set of other prisoners around them, might have had very different outcomes.

Unicorn or not, I am sure you are aware that sometimes things happen in prison that you don't expect.

It is if you insist on misgendering people to dehumanise them.

So call them "they". It's quite simple really.

All I can say to that, is that your experience of male prisons is vastly different to mine, as you seem to be describing a unicorn. Most prisons don't even have enough pillows or shoes, let alone time to create supportive communities like that.

calling a transwoman who has made a genuine effort to present as a woman a man hateful

And I find calling a man 'she' offensive.

I've chosen to centre transwomen as I believe the risks to women are pretty obvious, and people rarely consider the other side of the coin.

People constantly and only consider the other side of the coin. The narrative is always 'Oh those poor transwomen, they are in such danger in men's prisons and it makes them unhappy.'

If the standard position were to consider women, there would be no men in their prisons in the first place.

How many women have to share mixed sex shower facilities?

None

How many women have to share mixed sex sleeping arrangement?

None

Are these women feeling that their dignity is being respected?

On the basis of the above questions, this question is nonsensical because the scenarios you are presenting do not exist

@CuriousAlien it's definitely an interesting conversation! I think I alluded to why transwomen may become centred - they are generally socialised as males so have male privileged.

I don't see anything wrong in acknowledging that transwomen are male. I also would call a man in a dress that has made no attempt to transition a man. However I personally feel, and I don't expect anybody to agree, that repeatedly calling a transwoman who has made a genuine effort to present as a woman a man hateful. Like I said before, you can respect people's pronouns without calling them a woman, I feel this is common courtesy, and we should not be attacking individual people.

I've chosen to centre transwomen as I believe the risks to women are pretty obvious, and people rarely consider the other side of the coin. In order to create meaningful debate and discussion sometimes it's necessary to raise the flip side of the argument. Otherwise you just have a thread of everyone agreeing with each other and all of the issues are not considered thoroughly.

How did transwomen end up in womens prisons? There was a landmark case years ago that determined it was a breach of human rights to not allow gender autonomy in prisoners. Unfortunately the pendulum swung too far and bad decisions were made by the prison services. HMPPS are attempting to rectify those now but progress takes time!

@RMNofTikTok I really appreciate hearing your perspective. It seems clearer to me now why you keep asking about how to keep transwomen safe in men's prisons. My interest is to ask why are there men in women's prisons and how did we get here? What problems does it cause women and what might be done about that?

And I think the centring of men on a board for discussion from a feminist perspective explains the different twists and turns of the thread. Of course that depends on the feminism as these days there are types that centre women and girls and types that seem to be more about equality in general (personally I wouldn't call those feminist.)

On the subject of pronouns I also find what you say interesting as I hadn't really thought about the difference between talking about groups as a whole or an individual. I suppose I would want to weigh up on a case by case basis if my using sex-based pronouns was unnecessarily harmful to a person and then I would choose to use sex neutral pronouns. In that weighing up I also include my own sense of wellbeing and autonomy to speak my truth. And also the impact on others and the social structure in general if language erasure or forced language is allowed to flourish through my complicity. That's why I might still use "he" for an individual transwoman. Would you think of that as transphobic or vexatious?

It's also important that Lauren Jeska committed their crime because of their trans status.
So being in the female estate must be very affirming for Lauren.