Tom Swarbrick, LBC 11pm last night (Thursday)

[ShotsFired]

He had a whole hour about Karen White. It is well worth listening again: www.lbc.co.uk/radio/player/#screen_listen-again and scroll down to Tom Swarbrick.

They had a TW caller who does something with prisons and met KW several years ago who had some illuminating insights and used interesting terminology.

Also many callers who all got it, apart from one chap who seemed a little deranged (banging on about KWs human rights etc) but was swiftly put in his place

Thank you.

Thanks. I might have a listen to that while I’m getting ready, now you’ve assured me it’s worth it. Those late night phone ins have a habit of attracting some, ahem, ‘interesting’ people so I was a bit hmm.

That interview with Jenny-Anne Bishop OBE, the TW and founder of the Transforum support group, is really good and really enlightening.

Bishop is nearly 70 (I see from from a bit of Google fact checking) and has been working to support people transitioning for a long time, and is also involved with the national Trans Advisory Board for the prison service. She speaks authoritively about the system that assessed Karen White, and has previously met White long before White's criminal convictions.

I am not working today, so I have taken the time to make a transcript of the interview. Apologies for any inaccuacies, the LBC player via mobile web really isn't great for skipping back & forth to relisten, so I've marked one area where I'm not sure I quite caught what Bishop was saying accurately.

_
TS: Tom Swarbrick, LBC radio presenter
JAB: Jenny-Anne Bishop OBE, Transforum

TS: Jenny-Anne Bishop is from the Transgender rights group Transforum and I believe Jenny-Anne that you’ve actually met Karen White, haven’t you? Good evening.

JAB: Yes, good evening. I have met Karen White some years ago when she started her transition and I have to say she was a difficult person to deal with. [short laugh]

TS: Well, presumably you met Karen White at the time that they were in prison having been sentenced for various sexual assaults.

JAB: No, no, this was long before she went to prison.

TS: Right.

JAB: I’m talking six, seven years ago. Um, because we’d been running trans support groups for something like sixteen years and all sorts of people come to see us…

TS: What was she like?

JAB: My impression was that Karen was trans, but very difficult to deal with.

TS: Why?

JAB: Well she was one of those people who was very determined, “this is what’s going to happen,” she didn’t want to go down the usual pathway of being properly assessed and counselled.

TS: And that made the alarm bells ring, did it?

JAB: It did, because we meet trans people like that who, like any other group in society there are some people who are problematic and don’t want to follow the rules. And you can see from what happened afterwards that she was a problematic person. I have no doubt that she was trans, but you get bad trans people just like you get bad eggs in any society. [short laugh]

TS: And you say “she,” is that because Karen White had legally changed the name to Karen White, or they were undergoing…

JAB: As far as I can remember, she had changed her name but because we’re a support group if somebody tells us that that’s their gender, then we use the appropriate pronouns because self-identification as it’s called has been supported by the Equalities Act in 2008…

TS: Why do you think that a self-identifying woman would be allowed to go into an all-female prison?

JAB: Oh, absolutely not! No. What you may not know is I’m also a person who works with the prison service as a member of the national Trans Advisory Board’s prison and probation, and what will have happened to Karen is she will have gone before a case board, which is rather like a [? not sure] of all the groups and services including, perhaps, information from her GP, from a gender identity clinic if she is attending one, from her offender manager, from her probation officer, from probably a forensic psychiatrist, there will an awful lot of people will be involved and they will make a very careful assessment.

And I think what happened with Karen White was that the risk decision wasn’t properly taken. Now what I can tell you is that there are hundreds of transgender case boards and because people are human once and a while it goes wrong and unfortunately it was this one. And while it’s dreadful that it happened, but it doesn’t invalidate the whole system. There is no way Karen would just have declared, “I am a woman I want to be in the female estate.” That absolutely does not happen.

TS: So there wasn’t an active decision taken with her case, it was the fact that no-one took any decision.

JAB: No, no! An active decision will have been taken in a case board, but in this case they didn’t assess the risk correctly.

TS: And what would have been involved in assessing that risk, how would that risk normally have been assessed?

JAB: Well, I said to you that they would have looked at her history, at her offending behaviour, and they would have almost certainly have had a forensic psychiatrist who have looked at it and judged the risk.

TS: I don’t understand…

[They talk over each other for a bit here, so I can’t make out what each was saying]

TS: Yeah…

JAB: …can be transferred, um, the deputy director of the prison service for that estate will have to approve it, and the governing governor of the receiving institute will have had to approve it.

TS: Okay…so that did happen in this case…

JAB: Somewhere down the line somebody has got the risk assessment badly wrong.

TS: So how on earth do you get a risk assessment wrong that says that a person who has committed violent sexual assaults of women and children should be ever considered to go into a female prison? I mean there’s getting it wrong, and then there’s just ignoring…

JAB: I think that for some reason not all the offending behaviour was known or considered.

TS: That’s why they were in prison! They were put in prison because of sexual assault!

JAB: When the decision was made, the person was not convicted.

TS: The person was not convicted when the decision was made to move them to a new prison?

JAB: She was on remand at that point, and remember we’re supposed to judge people as innocent until proved guilty.

TS: [Tsks loudly]

JAB: Now I’m not saying the right decision was made at all, because I don’t think the risk was properly considered. And if it were down to me to take that judgement I would never, ever have said you should make that transfer.

TS: What a mess this is.

JAB: Well, you have to be careful because look, we’re all human. Once and a while people make mistakes.

TS: And do you think someone…

JAB: And that doesn’t mean the whole system is wrong…

TS: No…

JAB: …just because one person made a mistake.

TS: That’s fair. And the prison service say that they apologise sincerely for the mistake they made...

JAB [interjecting forcefully] Absolutely!

TS: ...in this case. Do you think anybody should be held accountable?

JAB: Well, they will have been held accountable, I can tell you…

TS: So will someone lose their job, or be suspended…

JAB: …there was an internal enquiry into what went wrong.

TS: Well, we will wait to see if someone will actually be held to account for it, personally, for not making the correct risk assessment. But surely, why can it be the case that anyone who self-defines, who says that they are a woman and dresses as a woman, gets an assessment that says, “We’ll put you in a female prison?”

JAB: Well, I can tell you that does not happen very often. The majority of trans women are held in the male estate and quite a lot of them want to stay in the male estate because they feel well supported. Some of them are even attracted to men and would prefer [to stay in the male estate? I think JAB said female estate here, but it doesn't seem to fit with the overall point she's making], and some trans offenders are kept in what are called trans clusters where a number of transgender prisoners are kept together, and they are kept in the male estate, not the female estate.

And also remember there are also people who transition the other way, from female to male, but in general they are kept in the female estate because the risk of putting somebody who may still be essentially female-bodied in the male estate is far too great.

TS: But clearly there are people who are being manipulative about this, who are trying to manipulate the system to get them closer to the people they ultimately want to abuse.

JAB: Um, I…well. Occasionally that happens and generally those people are weeded out before they’re even considered as transgender.

TS: Do you know, Jenny, how many people are on the UK prison estates who are transgender and therefore in a prison which is of the sex that they are transferring into?

JAB: Um. I don’t because the figures are not published, but I would estimate that that’s probably less than 20.

TS: So really a handful. A dozen, a couple of dozen at most.

JAB: Oh yes, absolutely. We know that those who’ve been declared and been through a trans case board number a hundred and twenty-five…

TS: Wow

JAB: …and the majority of those – something around a hundred – are transwomen, about twenty-five are transmen, and I’m pretty certain from the knowledge and I visit people in prisons, so I’m used to talking to trans offenders, the majority of them are still in the prison of their birth sex.

TS: Hmm. Will you go and see Karen White?

JAB: I think it’s very unlikely I would even be allowed to go and see Karen White because of the high risk. I did meet Karen as I said before, um… if I would if it was felt useful I would certainly visit her, but it’s not something I would think “Right, I really need to go and see her.”

TS: Right. Well if you do, can we make sure we get in touch with you afterwards?

JAB: Sure.

TW: Jenny-Anne, I’m grateful to you. Jenny-Anne Bishop, Transforum, and as you’ve heard has met Karen White.

Thank you so much for that transcript!

tbh, given the state of the MoJ's data collection, I'm not sure why JAB claims to have more insight into the numbers and their disposition as implied here: The majority of trans women are held in the male estate and quite a lot of them want to stay in the male estate because they feel well supported.

It would have been so helpful if either JAB or TS had raised the issue of convicted murderer and attempted rapist Karen Jones' early release because of the 'correct estate' conundrum and perhaps discussed what should happen.

Thanks for doing this OP. Interesting that JAB was so far off the mark with the estimate of trans prisoners. I can't recall the proportion of transwomen prisoners in the male estate: I seem to recall it's about 60% with the remainder obvs being in the female estate. Again, rather higher than JAB estimates.

Huge thanks PineappleSunrise!

And also remember there are also people who transition the other way, from female to male, but in general they are kept in the female estate because the risk of putting somebody who may still be essentially female-bodied in the male estate is far too great.

I WONDER WHY...

And also remember there are also people who transition the other way, from female to male, but in general they are kept in the female estate because the risk of putting somebody who may still be essentially female-bodied in the male estate is far too great

So they acknowledge this is a risk, but not the other way round?

I thought Bishop come across really well and made several points that really, strongly indicate that she has been working in areas where she's considering trans-identifying people as PEOPLE, not as poor victims who must be cosseted and indulged no matter what:

1. She is very clear that Karen White IS genuinely trans, not just a chancer manipulating the system.

1. She also views Karen as a "bad egg" who should not have been transferred to the female estate even prior to conviction due to the nature of her charges and the risk she potentially posed to female prisoners.

1. She makes it really clear that she understands the distinction between identifying as a woman and being female bodied, and vice versa.

1. She clearly does spend a lot of time thinking about risk and responsibility. (Spot the 69-year-old grown up, eh?)

Really, the only bits where I would have challenged further would have been:

1. To have referred back to Bishop's comments about using preferred pronouns referring to the 2008 Equalities Act, and then tied that directly to the risk assessment failure in the White case and pointed out that the GRA reforms and self ID in particular are being pre-interpreted to make White cases MORE likely, not less, and across more institutions (hello, Girl Guides). How does Bishop, personally, think self-ID let loose across EVERYTHING is going to work out, when she knows from her own experience in prisons that risk assessments have to be made on a case-by-case basis?

1. I was annoyed at the (typical) media call for a "name" to blamed and punished for what appears to be a system failure that may well have had a institutional shift in what "self ID" means at its heart. I don't care if "Wanda from HM Prisons" made the mistake on that day, I want to know if guidance has changed, or if key information about the nature of the charges was missing, etc. This is a SYSTEM threat posed by the proposed changes to the GRA. Looking for one person to blame is counter productive.

I didn't know there were about 25 Ftm transpeople in female prisons and none in the male's.
Doesn't this sort of prove that no one believes TWAW and TMAM and to do so really leaves people in danger...

Thanks for your time ShotsFired

Serf, if you are referring to the transcript, that was Pineapple, not me.

All credit to her

But Bishop just held that entire conversation without ever once referring to White's victims or the rights of women not to be incarcerated with a male sex offender .

In Bishop's world, there are the trans people who have needs and wants and risks that can be carefully assessed and oh whoopsie slipped up there, never mind....

Leaving aside the monumental cock of White's situation, that they were waiting trial for violent sex crime on a locked women's psychiatric ward taking full advantage of their being housed with women, and an extensive history of sex offence convictions, there are still a couple of questions for Bishop that no one is asking.

• where are the women in your considerations here? They're barely wall paper in your discussion of White, you don't appear to see them as human, never mind equal and being stakeholders in this situation.

• Could those women have experienced sex offences from a male they couldn't get away with if male prisoners did not have the right to be housed with women if they wish to? What effect may this little whoopsadaisy of process have had upon them? What support have they been given as victims of a crime the system enabled and facilitated? You are clear that it is impossible to guarantee that a system won't have these little cock ups - it is just and appropriate that it should be possible for women's safety to be a case of Russian Roulette like this?

• Is the risk of women being collateral damage in these inevitable oh what a pity mistakes and the risk to their feelings of safety, privacy and dignity as a group, worth the benefit to the tiny number of males who wish to have access to them? Is it not inevitable that this is a statistical possibility every time a male is placed among a group of women?

• Would you share the impact assessment upon women, and the benefits to women of this policy, compared to the risks and downsides for them and their expressed feelings regarding this? Are they of equal weight to the perceived benefits to the trans person wishing for this to happen? Do the women feel it's worth it? Do they consent to taking the risk you're very happy to abandon them to?

JAB: As far as I can remember, she had changed her name but because we’re a support group if somebody tells us that that’s their gender, then we use the appropriate pronouns because self-identification as it’s called has been supported by the Equalities Act in 2008…

I thought it was only GRC that was protected by the Equality Act?
Not self-id (which is the whole thrust of the proposed changes)

Am I misunderstanding? It seems unlikely that Jenny-Anne Bishop would get such a basic thing wrong given their role and experience though?

There needs to be opened, as a matter of urgency, a facility for transgender prisoners (including those held on remand) to which every trans prisoner is sent atomatically, unless they say that they wish to remain in a prison matching their sex.

It is unacceptable that women prisoners, many of whom are vulnerable, are, basically, forced to share locked-in spaces with males. These women don't have a choice. We have to speak up for them.

And afterthought while I'm spitting feathers:

• What FPFW said in the House of Lords. Bishop's perspective and interests are obviously and massively biased due to their work, personal involvement and agenda of work. What background of qualifications and expertise does Bishop have in the field of prison accommodation and the needs and vulnerabilities of female prisoners and prisons?

Bishop is an expert to inform decision makers regarding one, and only one, set of stakeholders in this situation. Where are the experts informing decision makers from the other set of stakeholders? What do they have to say? When will they be interviewed?

But Bishop just held that entire conversation without ever once referring to White's victims or the rights of women not to be incarcerated with a male sex offender .

All true, but to be brutally honest I expect Bishop to look at this through a trans lens, just as I expect a feminist to use a female one. I don't need Bishop to fight the feminist case.

The rights of the other offenders should be looked after by the prisons service. The entire governance should be about looking after offenders while they are serving their sentences. That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say that I want to understand how the system failed. In a properly working system working off appropriate guidance, people like Bishop should be able to advise on trans issues without having to worry that their advocacy will be twisted to allow risk assessments to go wrong or be ignored.

Bishop knows that not all TW should be in the female estate.

Bishop is an expert to inform decision makers regarding one, and only one, set of stakeholders in this situation. Where are the experts informing decision makers from the other set of stakeholders? What do they have to say? When will they be interviewed?

Completely agree with this. THIS is the type of system problem I'm wondering about. The trans rights are about to really take off, who is looking after women's rights? Is this White case really a one-off regrettable error, or is it the start of things to come?

If Bishop was giving the guidance, I'd be reassured. If Challenor or Bradley was? Not so much. How does the decision system accommodate the fact that the "new wave" of trans advisors actively refuse to recognise the difference between male and female bodies?

Even the trans-fan stalwart guardian can't make lemonade with these lemons:

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/11/karen-white-how-manipulative-and-controlling-offender-attacked-again-transgender-prison

I expect Bishop to look at this through a trans lens

So do I. What I was objecting to is an interview not pointing out and challenging that Bishop sees this situation entirely through the trans lens and how massively that lens excludes women - to the point where they're not even present in Bishop's narrative, as if there is no conflict of interests or another party to consider.

And also not pointing out and challenging that heavily personally invested trans advocates are advising on and being regarded as experts in situations where they are heavily biased and have no expertise or qualifications to be speaking. And this is why we are ending up with some fantastic trans friendly policies and laws that break the Equality Act, safeguarding frame work, fail to take into account standard policies, systems, or other people's rights. The over weighting of advice taken from trans advocacy groups is how at least two women were made the victims of male sexual assault inside a female prison.

Completely agree the interview is not going deep enough into why this incident has been of such concern. If people genuinely thought it was a one-off, it would have surfaced briefly in the papers and disappeared again - just another institutional cock-up.

I thought Swarbrick touched on some of the GRA issues, but didn't go in nearly hard enough on the current "TWAW" rhetoric and how it's already being applied in spite of sensible voices like Bishop pointing out the actual risks and making it clear that self-ID should NOT be a free-for-all in female spaces.

I don't hold Bishop responsible for that. But I will freely admit I'm really fucked off with how establishment institutions - MoJ, HM Prisons, Girl Guides, ALL our political parties, the BBC, every student's union in the country - have chosen to ignore every and any voice of reason in favour of the maddest elements of the Twitterati.

So they acknowledge this is a risk, but not the other way round?

Quite.

I am happy that transmen do not get sent to male prisons as its clearly dangerous. But..of course sticking the bepenised in female jails is dangerous too!