@rosesandflowers and anybody else who wonders what actual examples might look like, here's one: R (Green) v Secretary of State for Justice
It's long, so I'll grab a couple of quick excerpts and you will get the gist:
5. ...The claimant is a man, but for the purposes of this judgment I shall refer to him in the female gender as she has changed her name by deed-poll
Green was in prison for brutally torturing and murdering his wife.
9. On 21st December 2005 the claimant (together with other family members) was convicted of the murder of Rachel Hudson in the Crown Court at Nottingham before Mr Justice Hughes (as he then was) following a 5 week trial. The claimant was sentenced to Life Imprisonment with a minimum term of 14 years less time served on remand before sentence. There were concurrent sentences of 4 and 5 years for doing acts tending to pervert the course of justice. The entire family subjected Mrs Hudson to repeated beatings and violence.
9. It is clear the claimant, at least in the past, was capable of serious dishonesty by telling lies.
10. The claimant asserts that she is desirous of transferring her gender from male to female. It is not clear when this profound change took place. Certain it is the claimant has male genitalia and physical appearance. I am told she is now bald.
19. It is unclear whether the claimant has a diagnosis of dysphoria. The evidence on behalf of the Governor provided by Mr Peter Jobling (the segregation unit manager) reveals an unclear (certainly uncorroborated) view as to the precise medical position of the claimant. As of April 2011 a consultant psychiatrist at Charring Cross Hospital in London (Gender Identity Clinic) regarded the claimant as "a conundrum" who appeared to be saying different things to different people. He indicated her description of transsexualism to be of recent origin. Regardless of that diagnostic conundrum there is no doubt the Governor has treated the claimant as a transgender prisoner. She stated she was transgender upon arrival and has been a vocal member of the prison's group of transgender prisoners. The claimant enjoys an enhanced IEP status within the prison.
Green had made repeated complaints which are detailed in the judgment, mostly about lack of access to wigs, false breasts and a prosthetic vagina, and also wanted tights and for some reason sanitary towels.
The judge upheld the Governor's response which was that wigs provide an obvious escape risk, prosthetics a mechanism for contraband, tights a self-harm risk, and that the Claimant was already allowed to dress in women's clothes and wear make up on the wing, but chose not to do so (para 25(7))
Interestingly, the judgment also touched on the application of the Equality Act:
66. The claimant asserts the comparator should be a female prisoner; whereas the governor contends it should be a male prisoner. There can be no doubt the claimant has a protected characteristic – gender reassignment. The claimant is, however, male. The only possible comparator is to a male prisoner who is not undergoing gender reassignment...
68. Frankly, it is almost beyond argument that the only comparator is a male Category B prisoner at HMP Frankland. I am influenced by the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Croft v Royal Mail Group PLC [2003] EWCA (Civ) 1045. I find it impossible to see how a female prisoner can be regarded as the appropriate comparator. The claimant is a man seeking to become a woman – but he is still of the male gender and a male prisoner. He is in a male prison and until there is a Gender Recognition Certificate, he remains male. A woman prisoner cannot conceivably be the comparator as the woman prisoner has (either by birth or election) achieved what the claimant wishes. Male to female transsexuals are not automatically entitled to the same treatment as women – until they become women.
Self ID would change that, because on a self-ID regime Green would have been able to acquire the GRC simply on application. It would be a terrible idea for someone who is a proven liar, a serious physical threat to women, who is not diagnosed with GID, and (in my view from reading the judgment) a fetishist, to be accommodated in their desire for a fake vag and relocation to the women's estate simply on their own election.