Women's jail campaigners demand transmen offenders should be kept in female prisons *Title edited at OP's request*

I came up with one for Twitter.

"A woman is an adult human of the biological sex class which, in the absence of disorders of sexual development or other infertility, has the potential to conceive, gestate and birth children between the menarche and the menopause."

The pettiness is mostly on the part of the prison authorities. Seems a strange hill to die on considering the genuine problems in prisons. Nothing in the article said the tm were ND, if they aren't then they're being petty. Although I've seen loads of men who are clean shaven and/or have long hair. Trans as stereotypes strikes again.

I read a clinical case study of a baby boy with XX/XY chimerism. He had a testicle, vas deferens, penis, scrotum... and where the other testicle should have been, an ovary, with a fallopian tube that led to a partially-formed uterine horn in his abdomen.

The female organs were removed to prevent future health problems caused by a) having female sexual organs in the presence of an entire bollock's worth of testosterone, b) having male sexual organs in the presence of an ovary's worth of female hormones, and c) having part of a uterus without a vagina for menses to exit via.

The baby should be able to father children later in life with his remaining sexual organs and would never have been able to support a pregnancy, so not a girl, despite fitting your definition of female through having XX, an ovary, and part of a uterus.

In the boy's case, the Wolffian duct had mostly developed and the Mullerian duct mostly atrophied, hence the externally-male genitalia, the ovary in the scrotum, and only a small part of a uterus developing.

Maybe we should apply for copyright and make it "Woman(TM)"!

Every day's a school day on here, but ' a developed Mullerian duct and atrophied Wolffian duct' is going to keep me busy on google for a long time!

Is 'DMD+AWD' the new AFAB??

My not-very-snappy definition of a woman when arguing about terminology is: someone who has, or who has had, a majority of the following:
xx chromosomes, a uterus, a clitoris, periods, and a girlhood.
I think it works, but I'm sure somebody will point out its inadequacies.

Or just 'woman, in the traditional sense of the word'.
Or 'biological female' - I'm not bothered that it implies there's a non-biological version, because there isn't.

What's interesting in that case is how the press, who usually bend over backwards to she/her a man who says he's a woman, used she/her and "woman" to refer to this woman who says she's a man. It's almost like men's feelings trump facts and women's feelings don't.

Some of the things they complain about seem petty, from both sides; hair length, beards, underwear.

I disagree. There's a strong correlation between autism and gender dysphoria amongst women and all of hair length, shaving, and underwear can cause sensory problems for autistic people.

I’ve deffo seen uterus havers/penis people decried as terfy of late…

… Yes mate! We use it ironically to take the piss out of the TRAs who demanded we stop using our own, normal, well defined, sense making words.

And where they can't steal the language they describe using it as transphobic. 'Biological woman' I've seen appropriated and called transphobic. I'm sure if the use of 'uterus havers', 'bleeders' or 'menstruators' had become accepted, there would have been outcries of transphobia or exclusion. I think the only reason there hasn't is because they enjoy seeing how offensive women find these phrases. Any words to describe women that excludes transwomen that we're comfortable with will be appropriated or condemned.

I think we have to just take a stand and use the correct language and speak out against incorrect use of language. Make it clear that far from being a courtesy to a man who identifies as trans, it is incredibly offensive to women to steal our language this was.

To constantly back up just means we are allowing more and more words to be stolen: woman, female, biological…. There is no reason to think Müllerian duct won’t be stolen as well. The theft of language is violence against women and girls.

I'm not sure how we make it clear that we mean "has a developed Mullerian duct and atrophied Wolffian duct" otherwise.

‘Biologically female’ suggests there are other ways to be female. Transactivists then simply claim ‘biological’; many already do.

That's why I keep using "observed female at birth" or "biologically female. You can't alter an observed fact.

If they continued the violence against women and girls that is the destruction of language applicable to us and therefore the ability to talk about ourselves, our oppression, our risks, our harms as a sex?

Plus clearly 5ARD men don’t belong in the women’s prison estate, just because someone was a bit too hasty with their birth paperwork.

It erases the biological fact of sex and turns it into an opinion.

Well, it purports to.

It's odd but if they called it the AFAB estate this would probably go some way to keeping those women happy but I can never understand why AFAB is considered non-triggering whereas "female" sends a he/him or they/them into paroxysms of despair, when they essentially mean the same thing.

I guess it's the suggestion that the "assignation" of the female sex doesn't have to be final, which is obviously bollocks but less triggering.

I can understand why prison authorities might wish to be cautious handing out treatments that are harmful.

Yes especially when a prison is probably a place where radicalisation or social contagion might take hold quite easily.

There doesn't seem to be any ideal solution to housing women who claim to be trans. Nothing that wouldn't leave some of them unsatisfied

It's odd but if they called it the AFAB estate this would probably go some way to keeping those women happy but I can never understand why AFAB is considered non-triggering whereas "female" sends a he/him or they/them into paroxysms of despair, when they essentially mean the same thing.

There doesn't seem to be any ideal solution to housing women who claim to be trans. Nothing that wouldn't leave some of them unsatisfied. Putting them in a male prison, certainly in the general population, is insane. I don't think a third space would make all of them happy either. From the article it would leave them feeling othered and isolated, much like being kept out of the general population of their natal of identified sex might. Also would a third space be enough? Housing tm and tw together? Particularly as the latter would massively outnumber the former. Some of the things they complain about seem petty, from both sides; hair length, beards, underwear. Others; hormones and breastbinders, I can understand why prison authorities might wish to be cautious handing out treatments that are harmful. Regarding healthcare and assaults, sexual or otherwise, it's wrong but I suspect any prisoner might have similar tales. Unfortunately, I doubt that makes tm prisoners special.

It's arguable that the tm, Graham, in the nbc article who committed monetary crimes should have been given a non-custodial sentence anyway.

Graham, had a girlfriend from whom, in addition to unspecified insurance fraud, she stole $90,000. Perhaps with therapy she could have accepted her sex and grown up to be a butch lesbian.

Apart from having prison systems, I'm unsure of the similarities between the prison systems within the UK vs the multiplicity of those in the US. Even in the US, there seem to be substantial differences between coasts and states re: race, gangs, city affiliation etc.

There seem to be many variations when comparing the female estate to the point where it's difficult to generalise from one to another.

From the article I posted upthread:

'...transgender men would not necessarily be safer if they were housed in men’s facilities, as opposed to being housed according to their sex assigned at birth. However, he added, that does not mean they do not experience physical or sexual violence in women’s prisons'
...
'Trans men may also be unfairly identified as threats to other inmates and punished, said El Sabrout, who said others “perceive them as threatening” and “dangerously sexual,” particularly when they begin taking testosterone. '
...
'When they were interviewed, most incarcerated trans men said they would not want to be transferred to a men’s prison. Some, including Graham, said they would prefer to be placed in transgender-specific housing units, an approach that was previously used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some city jails to house trans women, while others said they would not feel comfortable in those environments.

“Special units can cause you to feel isolated,” Ronnie Fuller, the trans man incarcerated in Georgia, wrote in a letter, adding that he “would feel like I am not being treated as a human but as an outcast.”'
...
'According to data provided by the California Corrections Department, 315 people housed in male institutions have requested to be housed in female institutions since the state began implementing its new policy, and 10 people housed in female institutions have requested to be housed in male institutions. None of the requests to transfer to men’s facilities has thus far been approved. ''

A conundrum.

I have read somewhere that women who take testosterone do present a management problem in female prisons because one side effect of testosterone is (unsurprisingly) that it can increase a person's tendency to violence. Also can make you stronger. It does seem bizarre that women have access to drugs that cause such side effects.

Not that any of this means that these women shouldn't be dealt with in the female estate but just that it does pose a problem.

Oh, but wait - I'm sure we were blamed for this at the time.

As in, pesky 'gender crits' have created a climate where women who don't look sufficiently womanly will be accidentally sent to men's prisons, just as we're making women get harassed for not looking feminine enough.

If this was a woman who was attempting to pass herself off as a man then that's a completely different slant, isn't it.

That's a really important detail which was glossed over a lot when the story came out, as if they'd just sent a random woman to the men's estate.