Blog Post by Prof Alex Sharpe

[SusanBunch]

Alex is a professor of law at Keele and a trans woman. This is Alex's response to the concerns raised by feminists:

inherentlyhuman.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/foxes-in-the-henhouse-putting-the-trans-women-prison-debate-in-perspective/

I don't want to go through it point by point because I have had a long day and I am already feeling a headache coming on. However, some general observations:

-Seems to suggest that the figures cited of numbers of trans prisoners are false. Did they not come from a freedom of information request from the BBC? Why the hell would they be inaccurate? Is Sharpe suggesting the prison service gave inaccurate information? Suggests that lots of them might be trans men, which skews the stats. The 27 trans people convicted of rape are definitely trans women, because rape requires a penis. Also, given the very small total number of women in prison compared to men in prison, I would venture that the number of trans men in prison would be absolutely minute (as in fewer than 10 or so). I also highly doubt any of them are in there for sex offences.

-Sly little dig about how it's ironic that GC feminists call themselves feminists at all. What, because we don't want to adopt a philosophy that would place the needs and rights of the rapist above the victim? So dismissive of women's concerns.

-Uses the argument that this is such a small problem as to be almost irrelevant.The thing with prison is that you only need one high-risk person in there to create a risk to numerous other people. Karen White assaulted four women in New Hall in a very short space of time. Had he been in there longer, the number would no doubt be much higher. If the 27 convicted rapists were all placed in different prisons, the number of women at direct risk would be substantial. Let me be clear: ONE incident of this is one too many. There should be no guidance whatsoever that allows this to happen.

• Suggests that this was simply due to a lack of proper risk assessment and there is nothing wrong with the basic policy of placing trans women in female jails. No- the point is that we do not have mixed sex prisons due to the risk this would place female prisoners at (plus a whole host of other reasons). Trans women like Karen White are fully intact males. Yes, they claim to feel female, but they have male genitalia, male bodies etc. It is not feasible to do a risk assessment in every case. In any event, a male prisoner who has not been convicted of a sex offence can still be high risk to female prisoners. We simply cannot have a system where we say it is okay to let males onto the female estate if they feel female. It's illogical and utterly nonsensical. If we did, we should abolish sex-segregation in prisons full stop.

• Suggests that this is not a problem because guards abusing women is a worse problem. Ridiculous argument imo. Yes, it is disgusting how many women are exploited in prison. So you want to add to that by introducing even more danger? That makes sense...

• The 'women do it too' argument, citing a case of a teacher who had a lesbian relationship with a pupil. While it is always wrong to have a sexual relationship with someone in your trust, the case Sharpe has cited is absolutely nowhere near the same as the horrific violence that Karen White perpetrated against his victims. Emily Fox is highly unlikely to be a risk to any woman in prison just because she is a lesbian who had a relationship with a girl aged 15. It's actually disgusting to place them in the same category- it has really made me angry and upset reading that.

From that article, I can see that Alex utterly dismisses the concerns of feminists, questions our status as feminists (because we can apparently only be feminists if we centre the interests of natal males), and engages in misogynistic comparisons that utterly downplay the seriousness of what happened in New Hall Prison. I hope to God this ends soon. I keep wondering whether I am living in a parallel universe and I can't understand why some female academics are applauding this. Maybe fear. I don't know.

It makes me appreciate the brave and amazing feminist scholars who do dare to stand up to Alex Sharpe and co even more.

The creeps in the trans movement have started emerging from the woodwork over this summer, haven't they? If anything shows that TW are not W, it's their total inability to show any empathy with females.

A designer dress does not a woman make.

Mind you, enough of them clearly make a good living on the back of this cultish ideology, so you can see why they're determined to carry on.

The article linked in the OP is bad enough, but the quote Susan posted on the first page is much worse. Apparently it doesn't identify as rape apologism though, so we're not allowed to complain.

Is there a suggestion that no risk assessment was carried out on Karen White? It keeps being said, but is there any evidence that the prison service didn’t simply follow the existing procedure? I think they did. This is what happens when you have a procedure that allows males into the female estate. It will happen again. I would urge prison governors to speak up about this and for former inmates to recount their experiences (although according to the TRAs, they deserve all they get because they were locked up in the first place).

Yes. The problem is that safeguarding has become subverted. It's not surprising when an offender is able to place themselves in the group of the most victimised people ever. The surprising thing is that those responsible for the safeguarding find themselves unable* to see past the special victim status and also see the offender.

• it's actually self-serving unwillingness so as to keep things simple and to keep on the right side of progressive thinking

AlexSharpe64

TERF is an accurate term. If it has become perjorative (sic), this is because of the understandable disdain right-minded people have for the views of those who live under its banner. Just saying.
12:34 PM · Sep 14, 2018

The professor's view, not mine, MNHQ

What a tosser.

A law professor who can't spell pejorative? That's a worry in itself.

No, TERF is not accurate. There are many people concerned about the impacts of self-ID who are not radical feminists, yet the term is just applied indiscriminately to anyone who questions trans ideology. People who bandy it about don’t even know what radical feminism is.

As for the spelling thing, it’s not Alex’s strong point. Others from the blog post:

‘Journalistic flare’
‘Slight of hand’

Plus of course the glaringly obvious lack of anything resembling a robust argument to back up any assertions made.

Revise and resubmit, Alex.

Just saw this in response to Alex’s ‘perjorative’ comment. Sorry, what? What the fuck am I reading? I feel like just giving up and moving to a desert island.

Yup, no structural forces disadvantaging women at all. Denying reality is worryingly far-reaching for these people.

Well....be fair. As someone who transed in middle age, Alex probably has not ever noticed anything structurally disadvantageous in being female. It just passed Alex by. The whole thing.

It seems extraordinarily short sighted and one might say wilfully blind not to have been aware, even slightly, though....you know, by reading books or talking to people or watching films and TV.

A key thing I've noticed about men who identify as women is that most of them seem to have absolutely no interest in women's interests or experience. I get the impression they have a sort of pattern of 'womaning' that they adopt in a sort of cosplay which is not connected to actual women's lives in any way.

A bit like dressing as an alien at a sci-fi convention. You know what you want to look like but have zero interest in how said alien might think or experience life. Because aliens aren't actually real.

It's a bit like autistic people imitating neurotypicals. (That would be me, incidentally.) I have no idea of the significance of what I am doing; I just know how to mimic sufficiently well to 'pass' most of the time.

I'm mulling over these limits to autonomy.

What did alex actually think alex meant by it? What behaviour does alex condone as being part of this?

Because all I can read out of it is MASSIVE RAPE APOLOGISM, but were I more super-woke, what should I have understood?

Sophocles, I'd really like to see that question pushed, and pushed hard.

What are the limits to autonomy? At what point and for what reason does an individual no longer have to right to say no to sexual behaviour?

floral, I have an awful feeling that it boils down to something like: "you're not allowed not to want to fuck me".

What else could it be?

You can only say "No" so many times before it wears out?
You don't get to say "No" if you're married?
You have to have the kind of sex that I want to have?

Sexual autonomy - as in the right to say no - is always an absolute right. The only possible limit on a person's sexual autonomy is their partner's consent to do what they want. What am I missing??

I;m on google now trying to find what Alex actually wrote (apologies for the derail - I think the piece on prisons/Karen White is disigenous and Kathleen Stock took it down like a boss).

Yeah, I am normally quite ok with not derailing, but this one is rather too big to just let lie, tbh. You can't have an academic, I presume in good standing, essentially say that there are times you can't rightfully say no to sex and let it pass.

Have read a bit more. So while this is specifically in the context of deceiving sexual partners about your sex (not disclosing that you're trans), there's a couple of phrases in there that makes my hair stand on end. Bolded...

"Further, Sharpe argues criminalization is inappropriate because sexual autonomy is not an absolute right. This is a controversial matter, perhaps tantamount to feminist heresy. In the context of rape-by-force, there is no doubt the right not to associate trumps the right to associate. In relation to cis-trans intimacy, however, Sharpe contends the engagement of a balancing act is necessary to justify criminalization, and criminalization should only be supported when the actual or potential harm suffered by cisgender people is significant and outweighs the harm suffered by transgender people. The privacy right of transgender people under Article 8 of ECHR must be considered. After all, the disclosure of gender history concerns highly personal and private information. Sharpe also questions whether actual harm flows from non-disclosure. Whilst many complainants report in court that they suffer “distress, disgust or revulsion”, it is questionable whether these feelings fall in the category of harm or amounts to mere offence"

So yeah, unfortunately this is, as they say "problematic", because what I read from that is that in sex involving a trans person, their needs are felt to be paramount, because they are by definition the more vulnerable party. That's an awful slippery slope.

And "rape by force" - wtf?

the whole article is here. Worth a read of section 3, which basically says "don't take "cisgender (sic)" sexual autonomy too seriously".

There is something around the fact that the focus is on transgender men and not women. I guess it conveniently factors out the risk of pregnancy, and the gendered nature of the vast majority of sexual violence - seems less "threatening" - anyone with more brain care to help me expand on that?

Oh I see, so they are not talking about 'rape' rape, as Whoopi Goldberg so tastefully put it. So, we are free to assert our boundaries if we are dragged into an alley, but if a potential partner is trans and we aren't happy to continue, we must apply the Riley Dennis rule and examine our preferences?
I mean shit, I thought that screen shot of some claiming reverse rape because a woman said no to them was a spoof. Or the one that says it's not possible for a trans person to rape a 'cis' person because the power balance is all in favour of the 'cis' person.

It's abhorrent.

Sophocles, I read it as focusing on cases where women deceived women partly (and more obviously) because a man has not been charged with deceiving a man by concealing his sex yet.

But the underlying message is that if you accept his argument it would apply just as well to men doing the deceiving.

The argument is that people have no right to make a criminal complaint on this basis because otherwise transgender people will be obliged to disclose their sex before anyone takes their clothes off. And that is anathema to Alex because trans people should never have to share this information. Alex wants the law changed.

Alex wants the landscape of sexual ethics and laws changed so that trans people don't have to comply with boring things like consent. Because they're a special case.

Maybe it's really really simple..... the mid/later-life transitioners are realising they have a very limited dating pool, and so are helping create a new, much younger one, hence all the work supporting the younger generation in schools etc to transition..

Lots of hetero transmen with vaginas for hetero transwomen with penises to choose from. No pregnancy issues because the transmen have been made infertile by hormone treatment.

I read it as focusing on cases where women deceived women partly (and more obviously) because a man has not been charged with deceiving a man by concealing his sex yet.

Absolutely. I noted at the time the contrast between the reporting of the cases that Sharpe focuses on, which were about "women posed as men to get sex", and for example, Lisa Hauxwell where the public was put in danger because they were told to look for "a woman who might pretend to be a man".

Women deceive. Whatever men say about themselves is the truth.

Oh, and in section three, I enjoyed the sentence that said although challenging the absolute right to sexual autonomy was a heresy in feminism, in relation to 'cis-trans' intimacy it was a necessary rebellion to orthodoxy.

Yep, rape as a brave and stunning way to challenge oppression.

It is not feasible to do a risk assessment in every case

I disagree with this - I would hope they do a risk assessment for every prisioner. That does not mean men should be in the women's estate.

The rest you are spot on.