This month a male with a long history of rape and other sexual and violent offences has been convicted of sexually assaulting more women.
This is probably not a shock to anyone as it is entirely in keeping with this individual's history of behaviour - except that these sexual assaults took place in a women's prison where the rapist was being held because - despite having had no surgery, hormones and still being legally male - they had "self-identified" as being a woman. So the authorities authorised a move to a women's prison where they shared accommodation, showers etc with vulnerable women prisoners - who often have a history of abuse from men and were stuck in an environment with this individual from which they had no escape.
metro.co.uk/2018/10/11/rapist-transgender-woman-jailed-for-life-for-sex-attacks-on-fellow-inmates-8028298/
I don't know how many fully intact male rapists are in women's prison in the UK but White is definitely not the first:
www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/642741/martin-ponting-jessica-winfield-transgender-rapist-prisoner-segregation-hmp-bronzefield
And it is an issue that politicians have been warned about.
In his evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee, Dr James Barrett, President of the British Association of Gender Identity Specialists stated that he was witnessing an “ever-increasing tide of referrals of patients in prison serving long or indeterminate sentences for serious sexual offences. These vastly outnumber the number of prisoners incarcerated for more ordinary, non-sexual, offences. It has been rather naïvely suggested that nobody would seek to pretend transsexual status in prison if this were not actually the case. There are, to those of us who actually interview the prisoners, in fact very many reasons why people might pretend this.”
Others, including the Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, have raised concerns: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/transgender-prisoners
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that half of all prisoners identifying as trans are sex offenders: fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/
And yet the government have allowed - and continues to allow - this to happen. It seems like only the interests and desires of male sex offenders are being taken into account and the safety of women counts for nothing.
AIBU to think that the government must take some responsibility for enabling these sexual assaults?
You can sign a petition asking for this policy to be reviewed here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/228767