Karen White case - how MN can help build political pressure for change

[PotsofJam]

Jess Phillips MP has commented on the Karen White case, saying anyone convicted of VAWG should be excluded from the women’s prison estate.

See her tweet here:
twitter.com/jessphillips/status/1038350610163265537?s=21
This could be the start of a media-political process. Jess has raised a question here. Do other MPs agree with her? Does the Government agree?
Thanks to the wonder of Twitter, email and the rest, you can help make them answer that question.
So if you’re on Twitter and have some time to spare this weekend, why not send Jess’s tweet to some MPs and ask:

Do you agree with the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Domestic Violence that prison service rules should be changed to exclude all VAWG offenders from the women’s estate, no matter what gender they identify as?

Jess Phillips worked for flipping Refuge. She knows about abusive men which makes this all the more infuriating.

US Rolls back protections for transgender prison inmates

[[https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/05/14/us-bureau-prisons-policy-change-endangers-transgender-prisoners US Bureau of Prisons Policy Change Endangers Transgender Prisoners:
Transgender Prisoners Face Alarming Rates of Abuse in Detention]]

The Guidelines For Protection Of Transgender Prisoners Just Got Rewritten

I have to admit, the realisation that Trump is in favour of keeping prisons aligned with sex at birth gave me a ??!! However, stopped clock x2 a day is my knee-jerk reaction to my cognitive dissonance.

From the last linked NPR story above, some essential nuance:

The guidelines now say that the Transgender Executive Council "will use biological sex as the initial determination" for facility assignment for transgender inmates, and a transgender inmate would be assigned to a facility based on their identified gender only "in rare cases." To make a determination about placement, the Council can consider the inmate's health and safety, the inmate's history of behavior and the security of the institution and its inmates.

According to the revisions, an inmate may also be assigned to a facility based on their self-identified gender if "there has been significant progress towards transition as demonstrated by medical and mental health history." Prison wardens are permitted to recommend transferring an inmate based on their identified gender as well.

There are prison rules about housing TIMs. At the next level, there is a review body to check that the right decision is made.

Gendered Intelligence have a place at the review body. It was the review body that approved the move to a female prison.

Yep. We're talking about the organisation that puts TIM's needs before women's. We are talking about the same organisation that the government commissioned to provide guidance and training across the public and private sector.

Jess P and the rest of Maria Miller's Enquiry team enabled that state of affairs, by giving undue weight to Gendered Intelligence's evidence.

I am fuming that Jess is getting plaudits for climbing half-heartedly on a bandwagon, at this late stage, and only after a catastrophe, to cover her arse.

And that is probably a contributory factor to why trump is where he is and why I fear he’ll get a second term.

Materialist, really? Farking bloody hell that's appalling.

FFS! Materialist, have you got links to that please?

I must admit that I don't have a good grasp of the percentage of the US prison population who are GRC'd or Self-ID's in UK terms so I can't judge this quoted figure:

384 offenders who identified as transgender out of an inmate population of about 147,000 in Texas state prisons.

And, I'd like to know the numbers who are convicted of sexual offences and if they're similar to the UK.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights is that for Male or female Lesbians?

@placemats
Agreed. No one left to vote for, even if I broadly agreed with their mission, policies and their position on this leave me cold.

Time for a Mumsnet revolution - I say this after an hour long discussion with DH (where I updated him on GP Aimee Challenor/TERFblocker) and he tells me not to worry as I can't do anything about it...but I am worried!

Am reminded of a speech by Reese Witherspoon "what do we do now?"

What do we do?

We keep on keeping on.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights has sided with the transwomen, stating that the female prisoners are acting out of transphobia and need to be educated

The idea that women who are trapped in a situation where they are helpless to stop males sexually harassing them should be "educated" to shut up about it horrifies me.

It is working. The wheels are off the transwagon in a way I didn't think possible this time last year. Even Owen Jones has decided he has a cake to ice. Two stories in the Times this weekend. James and Graham doing amazing work. And it's all coming from here and from Fair Play For Women and Man Friday and from Women's Place UK.

So we keep going. More people are discussing this IRL. I see people every day saying they are tired of it now - it's time to post on their FB or tweet in their real name about this.

So we keep going. We peak trans the lurkers and we give journalists ideas and we go onto AIBU and spread the word. We tweet and email our MPs. We fill in the consultation. And then we win, slowly but surely.

And then, because of us, vulnerable women don't get raped by men in women's prisons. Actual real people, not getting raped.

Have a gold star MN

The proposition of the thread was that MNs build political pressure for change.

I think MN has been doing that for some considerable time

The suggestion was to tweet Jess P and give an opinion on whether TIMS convicted of violence against women should be in the female estate

We wouldn't be in this position if Jess and the Parliamentary Committee on Transgender Matters had listened to women's organisations, rather than TIMS.

Surely the problem with excluding anyone convicted of VAWG is that sometimes the offenders are natal women?

Yup, a lot of the male people in Jess' thread seemed to be almost happy at this. You cannot exclude male people from female areas, unless you also exclude female people, was the implication

I hate it when politicans try and make everything a "case by case basis". It makes it ridiculously hard for normal people doing their jobs and trying to stick by ever changing rules and not be sued. I feel sorry for the poor pub landlord or leisure centre manager who will be forced to make a decision on the spot when push comes to shove.

Also even if trans prisioners are left on the mens side, they are still being afforded privileges that other prisioners on the male estate are not. If a trans woman without a GRC is legally a man then it is discrimination to allow trans women privileges which other prisoners on the male estate cannot access.

Where is labours solidarity for the female prison guards who may now be forced to perform strip searches on Karen White and other sex offenders of a different sex? Are those working class women too privileged for labour to care about?

Andrew Gilligan in the Sunday Times:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-was-convicted-paedophile-allowed-to-move-to-a-female-jail-nmpbfm272?shareToken=8b9313ac6c1c9227a1a737ce990cb9f4

and also:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-offender-seeks-to-wipe-crimes-as-aman-from-record-qfk5w68lb?shareToken=2bb5072907deafb68dd42f53a6ab758a

The ramifications of that second one are terrifying.

Wowm surely the second one cannot possibly be allowed? Thats a disaster waiting to happen and yet another thing feminists said would happen, that would never happen, coming true.