Sending love to trans people on MN and beyond

[cassandre]

This isn't an AIBU. I just wanted to send love to trans people, in the UK especially, and to other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

This hasn't been the easiest week for trans people, but there are a lot of us out there who accept you for who you are. We have your backs and we believe that eventually, tolerance and compassion will win.💖💖💖

Love from a longtime MNer and trans-inclusive feminist.

Oh, I told you I was speaking informally. And in terms of the language on this thread in particular, my language was not particularly absolutist.

The markers are pretty good!

Some shelters actually have rules around teenage boys not being present because it triggers women. So how can fully grown men who claim they’re women be allowed a pass - it really beggars belief and I’m so glad it will stop

I did look up your references, or didn't you notice? I actually posted the links to the two studies you referenced and actually asked you if they were the studies that you referred to.

Most sex crimes are committed against women. The fact that men commit sex crimes against men as well doesn’t mean men should be in women’s spaces.

Quite. An inordinately shallow preoccupation with external appearance is a hallmark of gender ideology. It’s not a feature of gender critical people. We don’t give a shit about how someone looks. I have no idea why they find this so hard to grasp. Maybe it’s because it’s so opposite to their own superficial outlook.

I consider the statement that I have posted and reposted numerous times now to be a statement that is pretty clear and not 'informal'

"Being truly transgender is a measurable biological phenomenon”

That was before I posted references to three of Bakker’s papers related to her conference abstract. ‘Or didn’t you notice?’ Although I tagged you

Oops, I quoted the wrong post there. I meant to reply to this comment from @JandamiHash :

You’re not getting it / we don’t have a problem with appearance. Women can look like Dwayne Johnson, they’re still women

Is that really a relevant question?

For anyone who wants to know what should be considered for evaluating risk of this sub group of males to show that they have a risk level not less than any other male in the UK of committing sex crime, have a read through the statistics for males who have transgender identities who commit sex crimes in the UK

Firstly, This was a question answered earlier this year:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-12-16/20298.

Question from Rebecca Paul (MP Reigate): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HMPPS Offender Equalities Annual Report 2023-2024, published on 28 November 2024, how many of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female were convicted of a sexual offence.

Answer from Sir Richard Dakin (MP Scunthorpe): 23 December 2024
Of the 245 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as male (i.e. those who now identify as women, non-binary or gender-fluid) on 31 March 2024, 151 were convicted of a sexual offence. This includes both contact and non-contact sexual offences. Offence data was not available for 1 individual.

Of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female on 31 March 2024, the number convicted of a sexual offence is five or fewer. We do not provide exact data for such small sample sizes as it risks identification of individuals. This approach is in line with our standards on data disclosure

To put this into perspective with what we already knew from FOI information:

Here is data from the MoJ

Here is an FOI request from 30 April 2024

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/populationoftransgenderoffend/response/2641337/attach/html/7/FOI%20240322022%20Annex%20A.xlsx.html

Up to the 31st March 2023, the MoJ stated that of the 88 male transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.

The breakdown was
48 rapes,
0 attempted rapes,
10 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
13 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
0 indecent assault or gross indecency
6 sexual activity with a child under 16
0 other

77 listed here.... BUT there is a total of 88 in the total so there is 11 crimes not noted.

Possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child has not been recorded in this FOI.

However, there is are further discrepancies in the data of the following when you look at TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE.

1 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity
3 rapes
2 sexual activity with a child under 16
3 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
This equals 9 additional... however the sum for TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE is 99.

Therefore 2 more sex crimes have been hidden from this data.

There were 203 males who were declared as transgender in the prison at the time.

There were 24 NB who were not segregated into male and female. What is key here, is that THIS IS NON-GRC HOLDERS. And we all know that males holding GRCs have increased and they are excluded from this data. NO female people with transgender identities were sentenced to a principal sexual offence. There were 41 female people with transgender identities in UK prisons at that time.

As a comparison, I have stats that say as of April 2019 that the general male MoJ data for male sex offenders was just 16.8% of the male prison population.

And there were 3.3% of female people in UK prisons were sex offenders.

I will leave you to do your own sums. And that doesn't include making or possessing indecent photographs of a child remember.

By the way this exercise was done in 2021. And I checked this data myself from the data source and it was correct at the time. So, it will give some back ground to the above.

The ones that say that in the March/April 2021 data collection period, the MoJ stated that of the 97 transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.
The breakdown was

40 rapes,
8 attempted rapes,
31 possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child,
32 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
20 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
10 indecent assault or gross indecency
9 sexual activity with a child under 16
27 other

The 97 sex offender transgender prisons collected 177 sentences between them.

Yes, given that the need for safe spaces for women is such a concern to many here.

No the relevant question is about prisons. When a rapist or a paedophile comes into my prison, I don't treat him differently according to whether his victim was male or female.

Male offenders do not belong in women's prisons. This is not complex thinking.

If it helps, I’d rather trans women weren’t violent to other men either. But that’s not my problem to solve.

The need for female single sex provisions are not solely for the purposes of safety, although that plays a large part of it.

There are other considerations too. Such as privacy. Female people have different and quite varied needs for their single sex spaces.

Any male person who has shown that they are either violent or a sex offender has shown that they have significant issues in controlling themselves.

I fully agree that it makes no difference at all whether their victims are female or male.

The question completely ignores the fact of just how often a male person is actually reported for their crimes, let alone convicted. Plus the statistics refer only to the crimes that are convicted for and not other victims of the past, if I remember correctly.

And if a male person who previously attacked another male person, what the fuck is to stop them attacking a female prisoner next?

Plus, considering just how many sex offenders who declared that they are female when they were male (and the judges understood they were male) have recently had non-custodial convictions or sentences that in no way reflect the seriousness of the crime, I would consider the statistics of prisoners with transgender identities to be on the light side of the crimes convicted.

My husband is a thoroughly decent and kind man. I have been with him for a long time, and fairly obviously, we've spent a lot of time naked in each other's company. I still wouldn't want him sitting there watching me change my tampon. And that's someone I love dearly. How would I feel if I was locked in a very small cell with a man i knew nothing about who was lying there watching me deal with my period and change my tampon? Given the stats, he's probably a sex offender as well - I've got a cell bell but can the officers respond before I'm raped, will I even be able to get to the cell bell if he threatens me?

That is why males do not belong in women's prisons. I'll die on this hill.

I did not imply it is relevant to the organisation of prisons. It is relevant to the safety of women, which is a theme of many posts here.

The crime statistics above do not break out attacks on women, either

No. I fully get it. As I've said, I've good friends who are trans and who've been made to feel like they're worse than scum just for existing. That might sit well with you but it doesn't with me and it never will.

Remember there are also female prison officers that then have to be in contact with male prisoners when they were employed to be responsible for female prisoners.

There was that case in Canada where the female prison officer was instructed (after she complained) to be on suicide watch with a male prisoner who knew they were being watched by a female prison officer. The male prisoner masturbated often. That female prison officer took her employer to court for triggering her PTSD.

It is not even just the safety and privacy of the female prisoners that is the issue. It is the staff as well.

Those statistics are not published.

And they should not matter.

I don’t get this whole ‘existing’ thing. Who is denying that trans people exist? We know they exist, we can see them. I personally don’t give a shit how anyone dresses/cuts their hair/presents themself. I don’t think your biological sex has anything to do with the way you dress.
I still don’t want to share female only spaces with men, even if for some reason those men think they are women.

Please point out where anyone on the thread said transpeople are worse than scum. Please point out where anyone on the thread even suggested that such a sentiment would sit well with them.

Your attempts at shaming and emotional manipulation of women because we have rights of own and don't put those rights below the wants of people who claim a trans identity, says more about you then it does anyone else.

Not to mention religion. Muslim women and Orthodox Jewish women cannot be in a single sex space such as a changing room with men. These are genuinely marginalised women and they need to be considered over pretend marginalised men

It’s the standard hyperbolic emotional blackmail when women say no to entitled men.

Why is the sex of the victim relevant though? I think you're implying that if their victims have been men or boys, that women prisoners would be at less risk. I think you may not actually know much about sex offenders.