to think if you have a penis, you do not belong in a woman's prison

[RickRoll]

There is to be an appeal tomorrow, at Bristol Crown Court, regarding the decision to send violent criminal Tara Hudson, who works as a transsexual prostitute (still has a penis, as 80% of transsexuals do), to male prison. Tara wants to go to a female prison.

AIBU to think that if you have a penis, you should go to male prison?

People are arguing that Tara is at risk of sexual assault, but Tara is not unique in this - lots of (non transgender) men are vulnerable, and the prison service has a responsibility to protect them.

I think I will do the same. Regarding personal safety, I'm old, I don't do Twitter so I haven't seen much of the hate on there, I know what I read on here and in the news about what goes on. Is it really true that signing a petition or whatever could pose a threat to safety in RL?

Same here, Hairy. I am very circumspect in most of my social media life, so it's fantastic that here at least I can say what I think.

The letters I have written in the past two days - to my MP, and to a number of organisations I otherwise like who had come out in favour of Hudson going to a women's prison - I have used my real name, sent from my main email address, with my street address attached, and it has been quite liberating. They were very carefully-written letters, but said exactly what I needed them to, and it has made me feel oddly a bit better about things. I don't know what kind of backlash is coming from them, but will report back.

And to add to my last post - I think I'm at the "fuck it, this is ridiculous" stage. I am frightened re social media because I don't want to be blocked and shunned by people I like, and who currently like me, but I think I am going to fling caution to the winds very soon. (I've already admitted to liking Greer. How amazing that we are at a point that this is a shunning matter in contemporary feminism.)

CharlieSierra, I don't know how risky it might be. But I sign petitions with my real name, and given the huge volume of actual death and rape threats made by transactivists against TERFs (see terfisaslur.com for terrifying screengrabs if you are brave enough) I don't want to make myself or my family a target. There also seems to be form for some transactivists going to some lengths to proactively seek out targets.

It is very, very disturbing.

Archeryannie and anyone else who has written to their mp, would you consider sharing the wording of the letter?
I want to write too but I worry I can't express what is wrong with all this clearly.

I don't want to share the exact words, because I don't want anything to link my rl name with this MN handle, and in any case I suspect it wasn't particularly good, but I wonder if we can use this thread to crowdsource a letter which covers all the points - write another letter together? I still have other organisations I want to write to!

I did read the brilliant betrayal of women prisoners article someone linked here, which helped a great deal.

Of course ArcheryAnnie, totally understand. Like the idea of crowdsourcing one here

Great idea, Annie.

Hairy yes of course, real names for petitions. I looked at terfisaslur, it's horrifying.

I feel the same way about my letter to my MP ArcheryAnnie but I'm keen on the idea of crowdsourcing a letter.

I'm a WEP founding member, and have put myself forward to volunteer as a dogsbody for the local branch, and am very disappointed about that retweet. I am going to email the main party about it. It may be an errant individual in charge of the twitter account - exactly why we discussed in the local branch about being really careful on social media, as it reflects on the party, not just your personal views.

I also agree with everyone with the fear of publicly stating these things for fear of attracting the attention of bullying/threats from trans activists. I am very shy of social media for that reason. Fear of threats and violence. Awful isn't it.

The WEP was always going to descend into trans allies / gender criticals infighting, along with the porn / sex work issues. It's why I'm taking a wait and see approach as far as they are concerned.

Sorry, missed a bit off. Wait and see because of the actual risk of a shit storm descending personally. Funnily enough, because the major players who oppose what I believe in (in women and their liberation) are men. And they seem to like to take it beyond words. Or at least threaten to.

I've been re-reading the WEP policy document whilst trying to word my email with reference to appropriate sources etc. This bit seems relavent:

^WE also recognise that
the binary words “woman” and “man” do not reflect the gender experience of everyone in our
country, and support the right of all to define their sex or gender or to reject gendered divisions
as they choose^

I think that is a wonderful sentiment, apart from YOU CAN'T CHOOSE TO DEFINE YOUR SEX! We can define our gender (or reject gendeded divisions! woo!) all we like, but our sex is a biological fact that we cannot change with any amount of medical treatment or cosmetic surgery. The rest of that sentence, is fantastic. But, meh. This makes me sad.

Italic fail. Sad and tired!

I've been lurking on these recent threads and have to say thanks to those posters who are speaking out so eloquently and to MN for allowing these discussions to take place. I'm a psychiatrist on an inpatient ward and there had been some discussion about where we should place a transitioning MTF transwoman on the ward - male or female area. Whilst reading MN on an entirely unrelated matter I started reading the threads on transactivism and womens spaces. Having started from the standard liberal but unthinking perspective I've lost several hours and rapidly reached peak trans reading these threads! I will absolutely be advocating for a more nuanced view in future thanks to this kind of thread and will be much more equiped to argue for the rights of female patients to female spaces after my reading here.

I hope you are heard. I too started from a liberal view on the matter. There are some powerful educators here.

That's great kittlekattle.

D'you know what, I also want to express my dissatisfaction with the fact that my gender critical, protective of womens' right to women-only spaces in a few, specific circumstances, somehow pits me as not liberal! I wish us ALL to be liberated from the damaging constraints of gender stereotyping. I wish us ALL to be liberated from the threat of male violence - if we were, there would be no bloody need for women-only spaces. If only. I don't wish for Tara Hudson to be victimised or suffer violence or assault whilst she serves her prison sentence. I just wish for womens' right to a women-only space in these circumstances to be respected, and Tara to be safeguarded in a way which does not encroach on that. It really doesn't feel like the opposite of liberal.

It's the massive and all-encompassing sleight of hand the trans lobbyists have pulled off. As someone said on the other thread, we really took our eye off the ball there. It's now really difficult to turn that back at all without looking like terrible transphobic meanies.

It is a massive slight of hand yes but I dont think it is all encompassing yet - the world is not twitter. For example, I have had some preliminary tentative conversations with colleagues where I work over the last few days and people fairly rapidly got the idea. I think as we routinely admit women as a direct effect of rape and violence towards those women (probably hundreds and hundreds in our combined experience) and yet none of us had even seen a transwoman complaining of suicidal thoughts due to an encounter with a meanie feminist, that particular line of argument would be highly unlikely to work where I work.

That doesn't mean we can't try to ensure adequate, safe and dignified provision for transgender clients but risk assessment wins over hurt feelings every time.
The idea of lobbying key groups and MPs seems to me to be a very good one.

Bubsamdmoo... check out Lierre Keith who has some great talks on You tube on the difference between liberals and radicals. I used to view myself as a liberal, but since getting into the unlikely combo of LK and mumsnet... my politics have shifted a lot more roots-ward :-)

This is salvageable, not just those of us you managed to educate on mn, it's others too. If you explain they listen and everyone I spoke to took a deep breath and said I can see it from both sides.

I don't know about salvageable, the genie is already out of the bottle.

Brilliant, kittlekattle. Apologies for being negative, it's easy to feel crushed by these things. But your comment gives me some hope that it's not a fait accompli that women have no rights to safe spaces.