January 2018 Karen Lawson in PN:
"I hold down a full-time job, I live up in Leeds now, and I’m happy and confident because it’s all I’ve ever wanted. I might have gone around things the wrong way, but to me I felt isolated. I’ve come a long way since then.
I’m a manager, which is a big achievement of its own. I do a lot with the LGBT community in Leeds, and it’s nice to just to bounce around the street and no one actually judges you. In the prison estate, it’s the prison grapevine, so people hear, and you never blend in fully.
Thankfully, I transitioned quite well, so it’s like I can bounce around the estate and someone can say “that’s another butch lesbian,” which is exactly what I am. The prison estate has come a long way now, and I know I did impact on that with my high court case, but there’s still a long way to come. "
Spetember 2018 Times:
"Karen White, 52, a former drag artist from Manchester previously known as Stephen Wood, then David Thompson, claimed to be transgender to the authorities. Despite knowing that White had undergone no physical changes and was a paedophile on remand for multiple rapes with a long record of sexual and violent offences against women, the authorities permitted a transfer to HMP New Hall, a prison near Wakefield with a mother-and-baby unit. White committed the assaults within days of the move and was transferred back to a men’s prison." (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rapist-karen-white-in-women-s-jail-was-trans-faker-lbcwjp8jc
Janice Turner: 'Trans rapists are a danger in women’s jails
As the case of Karen White has proved, putting male-born sex offenders among female inmates is naive and reckless'
(extract)
"The prison authorities knew a great deal about Karen White. That under her birth name Stephen Wood she’d served 18 months for gross indecency against a child; that she was on remand for three rapes also committed as a man; that, although she wore dresses and make-up, she’d retained male genitalia. Yet still they put her in a women’s jail.
I’d love to meet those who signed off this decision. What would they say to the four women who, within days of her transfer to New Hall prison in West Yorkshire, White had sexually assaulted? Confining a rapist in a women’s prison, among vulnerable inmates including rape victims, is like locking a fox in a henhouse. Yet they merely followed government guidelines “that prisoners should generally be housed in the estate that matches their expressed gender”.
On Thursday, after White admitted the three rapes and two of the prison assaults — one in which “her [sic] penis was sticking out of the top of her trousers” — the Ministry of Justice apologised, saying it failed to take into account her offending history. But her crimes were right there on file. Rather, the case illustrates a principle now hard-baked into schools, prisons and across the public sector: that women’s physical safety is less important than “gender expression”. (continues)
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-rapists-are-a-danger-in-women-s-jails-5vhgh57pt