I’ve a great idea.

Why not let people change gender whenever they like, but base our laws and segregated facilities on sex?

I could cry.

I think the prisons say their guidance on trans women in prisons follows from a human rights case in this country.
Does anyone know how the Irish exclude trans women from the female estate even though they have self I’d?
I did do a bit of googling but couldn’t find much.
Yes to protests, but Peterborough is a bit far. How about outside the Ministry of Justice.

So the checks and balances are a lie. Men who get off on raping women are allowed to claim to be one.
The women and children imprisoned there don’t have a voice to speak up about this themselves. We have to do it for them.

''Just a small administrative change that won't affect women at all'' is shown to be a crock.

The women and children imprisoned there don’t have a voice to speak up about this themselves. We have to do it for them

I've long felt that women in prison need a lot more attention and support of some sort. I'm not naive about the fact that some female prisoners are not nice people but as a population they are so vulnerable. I don't believe they are adequately cared for or helped even without there being male prisoners in the female estate. This just seems to be the last indignity they have to endure.

25 current inmates in women's estates?
Surely they are over represented?

from the article:
"Michelle Lewin, born Shaun Pudwell, changed gender while in prison for a grooming underage girls"

"The paedophile married Mark Lewin, taking his name, while in HMP Elmley in 2014"
He [Mark Lewin] was later jailed in 2015 for having indecent images of kids but has since been released"

So in short the offences against girls were committed whilst he was living as a man. Gender transition took place whilst in prison. Name change first through marriage (to someone convicted of indecent images of children) and then with GRC a new identity enshrined and she is protected.

Francis Crook executive director of the Howard League for Penal Reform "said that she was worried that ‘some men with a history of extreme violence and sexual violence against women have found a new way of exercising aggression towards women’.

‘These men are not transitioning because they like women and want to be a woman, but in order to exert a new kind of control and dominance over women, a sort of infiltration."

source:
//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5798945/Trans-women-convicted-men-attack-vulnerable-inmates.html

Claude Knights (safeguarding expert recently retired after 15 years as head of Kidscape)
on sex offenders who transition and are afforded the opportunity to change their name and hide their history as a consequence & recent case of "Christopher Noble, 32, transitioned to Christyl Knight while behind bars for keeping a stash of over 4,000 vile pictures and videos of kids as young as six months old"

“Allowing these individuals to hide a secret past is a dangerous practice.”
“Anyone who’s fuelled the vile trade in indecent images of children and therefore contributed to their sexual abuse should not be allowed to change their name.”

[[www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/3006679/paedophile-jailed-transgender-christyl-knight-christopher-nobile/]]

Have started googling for expertise on female prisoners. The charity Women in Prison has zero mention of this issue, though it does mention 'gender specific services'. Considering whether to email them about their view on who women prisoners are, except that they are clearly a tiny charity - why should they get flak from me which might affect their ability to continue? Except that their specific purpose is to support women in prison. Which ones?

I haven't clicked on the link, I feel too angry.

Where was the risk assessment? Is that something that's available via a FOI request or somesuch? If there are young babies in the same building, why aren't social services and the NSPCC involved?

I've only recently begun to find my voice on this area (have NC for this thread as have posted personal details under other names). I begun to fill out the consultation paper yesterday. I stopped halfway through as I needed a break, but tbh I didn't feel empowered by filling it out, I felt despairing - that our laws don't need loosening or a status quo, they need rolling back on some issues.

The charity Women in Prison has zero mention of this issue, though it does mention 'gender specific services'

annandale The charity was mentioned last week in a tweet by TELI (Trans Equality Legal Initiave, co-founded by Jess Bradley, Tara Hewitt & Michelle Hudson etc). TELI Twitter was angered by guests on the Victoria Derbyshire Show discussing the sexual assault on female prisoners in light of White's long violent offending history against women and children.

from the thread I wrote:
"Interesting to note that as well as Press for Change, TELI tweet has signposted towards 'Women in Prisons' as an expert source along with themselves and Press for Change.

Its a long established charity:
"We support women to avoid and exit the criminal justice system and campaign for the radical changes needed to deliver support services and justice for women."

One would hope that a charity committed to would indeed be an important voice and hopefully one which would be at the forefront of advocating for those women in prisons who have been sexually attacked, 'intimidated' etc by male-born prisoners.
//www.womeninprison.org.uk/about/who-we-are.php

List of Trustees some clear links to Garden Court Chambers and NUS (LSE/Goldsmiths)
//www.womeninprison.org.uk/staff/trustees.php

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3361150-Dr-Nicola-Williams-on-BBC2-at-10-15-Victoria-Live?pg=3&messages=100

We are going to see woman's prisons full of male sex offenders and Paedophiles, either wanting an easy ride or to gain access to women.

It's quite evident from the comments under the articles that this is confusing a lot of people.

Many people think that to be trans, you have to have had the op.

They also think that gender reassignment means the op.

Men, in particular, think that having the op makes a man less intimidating.

I'm gobsmacked that this person managed to get a GRC, given we still have gatekeeping.

On the other hand, in a way it's unsurprising, given how there is such support for eliminating the criteria.

The people that signed off on this must know they have grounds for invoking exemptions.

Why don't they?

• Why not let people change gender whenever they like, but base our laws and segregated facilities on sex?
  *
  
  Abso-bloody-lutely. I would have a law to prevent actual gender discrimination, ie people can dress as they wish regardless of their sex etc. Let men be as 'feminine' as they want, let women be as 'masculine'.
  
  But any service where segregation is needed, it should be on sex not 'gender'.

I'm gobsmacked that this person managed to get a GRC, given we still have gatekeeping.

Any gatekeeping is in respect to the person seeking grc. It's to ensure that is right decision for them, not the general public.

There is a big difference between this convict and Stephen White - but it throws a spotlight on the absurdity of the law.

With a Gender Recognition Certificate, and a new birth certificate, this convict is now classed as "female" for legal purposes.

She is protected under the Equality Act by virtue of her sex (female). No-one can question or challenge the new legal status.

She is no longer 'transgender' and she must be treated the same as any other female. To treat her differently would be unlawful discrimination.

So much for the reassurance that sex-based protections will remain in place. It's a lie.

Repeal the Gender Recognition Act.

FFS.

Yeah, let's make it easier for poor, misunderstood paedophiles to get put in jails with mother and baby units. You can always rely on a them to be fine, upstanding citizens with no ulterior motives at all, absolutely no question.

For fucking fucks sake, when will this end?

The TRAs and their handmaidens can't throw out the "not a true trans woman" trope about this individual, nor can they say no-one will go through the current process of getting a GRC or the far easier proposed self-id route in order to gain access to women and children for nefarious purposes.

When will the scales fall from the eyes of politicians et al regarding the insidious agenda behind this ideology?

So a GRC establishes a "right" to be in the female estate according to the ECHR but what if this person proves to be as dangerous as Karen White? Can they be moved back to male prison or do they have to be segregated in female prison?

Also, if one of the current criteria of obtaining a GRC is to live as a woman for two years and part of this living as woman is, as we've been repeatedly told, the necessity to access spaces and services for women (toilets, changing rooms, etc., etc.) how has this been achieved within a prison?

Will this be used as case law? Absolutely not a lawyer, but the thought of a convicted sex offender getting the GRC and this being protected by the EA scares the bejesus out of me. Can it be used as legal precedent for other sick men to gain access to women and children? Really worried now.

Up for a protest, at the Ministry of Justice?

I have had enough now. That book by Carol Shields ‘Unless’, where the daughter quits life to sit with a sign round her neck in silent protest - feeling v similar. But, as I imagine all of you do, there are the caring responsibilities, the children, the jobs around that etc. Just had to share that image as that is how I feel right now. Women and children are being thrown under a bus 😭

I just cannot get my head around the presumably rationale people who are making these decisions and going along with this.

It is terrifying the ideologies you can convince people to go along with, through fear of social rejection and isolation. Once something becomes seen as the 'acceptable' view so few people will speak up, or even think rationally.

It is genuinely frightening. Ir makes me reflect on so much history that previously felt it could never happen now,.
But it is happening now, authorities are going along with madness, damaging madness, right here and now.

Have just emailed this and the Karen White stuff to my MP who is on the justice select committee. I met him nearly a year ago and he was broadly supportive but didn’t think it would come to anything. Well it has.

The law and judicial decisions are a disgrace and completely contrary. As Rowan says other judges have ruled that a prisoner must be transferred so that a man can live as a woamn to qualify for a GRC, yet this paedophile already managed it. FFS.

Single sex exemptions can be applied but are not. Name changes can be refused by the gov to sex offenders but are not. Stopping them changing their name would stop them even beginning to live as a woman.

NONE of the 'safeguards' work. NONE of this should ever have begun. No man has a 'right' to become a (fictional) woman.