5 Transgender Women Who Have Fought Their Prisons From Behind Bars

[PrincessPlummy]

www.them.us/story/transgender-women-prison-legal-victories

'Incarcerated trans people can fight to create legal precedents that help the whole transgender community. Here are five who fought for important legal victories.'

You don’t have to keep saying your not homophobic or transphobic

It’s not necessary

It was a guy dressed up in a way that he stood out cos he want ed to

Look at me look at me

Anyway am off out in me manly clothes
But I still won’t go into the guys loos or think I am a sorta man

The awful thing is that for many years she used women's loos without issue, of course people realised she was not female but it wasn't a problem.

This is without issue/not a problem for your family friend?

There may have been women & girls using single sex spaces who did have had an issue/problem, stayed feeling uncomfortable or left without some male transsexuals recognising this.

The various combinations of female socialisation, empathy & the lack of, coercion, need for affirmation, male-entitlement etc are quite complex.

But @littlbrowndog I do feel concerned about this like my friend with genuine dysphoria. I'm not sure what the answer is and I don't know how we can sort out the issue of toilets without throwing them under the bus

@R0wantrees Just in case you thought you were responding to me I didn't say that. My friends passes very well, hence why I know it's harsh but I do feel very different about transsexuals who pass entering ladies loo versus those who don't as the former make me feel very unsettled and uncomfortable as I have this sense that man is in a space where I will be undressing

I know passing shouldn't be important but for me on an instinctive level it is, and I can't say why exactly

I don't know how we can sort out the issue of toilets without throwing them under the bus The biggest issue is that We, women are being told we have to sort this out by shutting up and accepting whatever it is TRAs want us to accept. That is what sts up the cognitive dissonance, your need to apologise for feeling as you do!

Why is there an issue with your friend using the men's facilities? Male violence? Why aren't men being asked to sort this out, to accept tranwomen without demur? Transwomen expand the bandwidth of male, just as transmen expand the bandwith of being female.

It really should be that simple! But we are dealing with a dysphiria and so expecting a reality based solution from the sufferers is like expecting your dog to miaouw!

Well, I have to hold my hands up then. I’ve posted a few links without commentary - just because Ive come across something in passing I think may be of interest, but either because Im in a hurry - or because I feel my opinion is predictable, I don’t put much in comments.

As for this piece, well rights are rights whether you are in prison or not. If it’s accepted you have the right to hormone treatment to transition, then that should apply. That’s partly why I’m opposed to self Id. There should be some assessment as to whether people have genuine dysphoria. Someone who rapes women, for example and then expresses a wish to transition may have a hard time onvincing that they are “a woman in a man’s body”.

Everyone in prison should be safe of course whether trans or not. So keeping trans people safe should not endanger others - ie putting in a woman’s prison merely shifts safeguarding concerns.

@CuriousaboutSamphire what's needed then? Do we need to enforce the law on toilets more closely? I believe transsexuals who have a GRC and therefore surgery/hrt are allowed, but people like the person I saw at the theatre are not. But who dares challenge someone? And what would you even say? Its a tricky situation with no easy answers...

R0wantrees Just in case you thought you were responding to me I didn't say that

PrincessPlummy
Im responding to the quoted section (in bold), which was from a post Xiaoxiong
Its a general statement though, not about whether or not a male TS 'passes' or experiences no issues/problems but about the impact on girls and women. Their needs, feelings & rights for safety, dignity and privacy seem to have been ignored.

(Im on the thread so could you please not @ me as it generates unneccessary emails)

@NellieEllie thanks for taking me in good faith - I was honestly quite shocked by the hostility I initially received! I find this a difficult subject, as I want to make sure that I'm being fair, and not displaying transphobia towards others

I don’t think post op transsexual women are indistinguishable from men politically

Politically? What’s that got to do with it?

They are different biologically.

It’s like me saying ‘well I don’t think brain surgery and a vaccination are different from a flower arranging point of view, so we will just do some brain surgery, rather than that flu jab you came in for... no? Well that’s very bigoted of you it wont hurt.’

But Babel I can't see how my friend who is post op and passes can be categorised politically with men. I understand why she wishes to uses female spaces even though she's biologically, and she's even come with me to the ladies before and it felt fine - she's not interested in women sexually anyway.

The problem is for those without surgery and ineligible for a GRC who uses women's toilets, but can't be challenged because we live in a PC time where people don't want to be seen as transphobic

Rowan I was trying to get across the idea that in the olden days the only men you'd see in the ladies were ones who, it was assumed, were post-op and many women were more comfortable with them. Whereas now, thanks to the push by TRAs, that assumption is no longer valid and it could be an AGP who has had no surgery. And women are not mind-readers to know the difference (except possibly that Lib Dem MP who can see people's souls..) So the unspoken accommodation made by women in the past on the assumption that these transwomen were post-op and posed no threat is now at an end.

But you're absolutely right - that assumption probably never was valid, even in the past, and there were probably women made to feel uncomfortable or excluded from those spaces by my family friend who never spoke up. I'm sorry not to have thought that through.

NellieEllie thanks for taking me in good faith - I was honestly quite shocked by the hostility I initially received!

PrincessPlummy its worth spending a little time reading other threads on the board and understanding how the platform and discussion here works. SM platforms work differently & have different conventions etc.

What does politically mean? Can you explain? It’s a biological difference

It’s unfortunate for your friend. I’m sure they’re lovely. My husband is also lovely and no threat to women, but he doesn’t use women’s spaces.

If we create legislation that lets your friend in, however delightful they are, then all men - all of them can use women’s spaces. Because we can’t ask for GRCs, we can’t ask for a nice psych evaluation and we can’t gatekeep. If one is in, all are in.

So by wanting your friend to have access, you want mixed sex spaces for everything. Is that what you want? Own it if you do.

No Babel I don’t want that at all. Maybe we should start asking to see grcs, then we have a way of know if the person is a genuine post op transsexual. But honestly I’d be scared to ask

I know passing shouldn't be important but for me on an instinctive level it is, and I can't say why exactly

It's about perception, isn't it? Partly.

And about the fact that if they've gone to that sort of effort to disguise themselves, perhaps they are preoccupied with keeping quiet and not making a fuss. Which would indicate a lack of predatory intent.

Except many transsexuals, who pass, display sense of entitlement to which they are utterly oblivious.

I can think of a couple of transactivists, who might, in a dim light, pass. And who give absolutely zero thought to the women they encounter.

Their supreme self obsession precludes it. They may not be predatory, in the traditional sense. But they are certainly boundary violating. Because they simply don't recognise that there are any boundaries.

Your friend might be harmless. But there are 6500 genetic differences between men and women. There will be women, beyond doubt, who recognise them as male. And for whom it's a problem.

Why do they not matter? Because, according to you, they don't. They never get taken into account. Just budge up and shut up. Because a man's feelings are more important.

As to the solution? The perfect solution would be to campaign to make men accept other men who don't conform to typical masculinity.

Failing that, a third, neutral option. One which both transwomen and transmen can use, and anyone else, not trans, who doesn't mind. Thereby not 'othering' anyone.

I understand why someone who is friendly with a passing transwoman struggles. I don't understand why they consider that persons feelings more important than those of women.

what's needed then? For the TRAs to be treated as anyone else with a dysphoria, as a person in need ot support, relevant treatment. Not as some new type of human being whose needs and wants transcend all others.

I knw... realistically? For the EA 2010 t be upheld as it is actually written and for female spaces to be treated as singel sex spaces. Sex not gender!

Then the GRA needs to be reformed, the 'legal fiction' to be clarified. Things like recording transwomen's crimes as those of females and any other stats that would skew provision of health facilities to be clarified and then stuck to.

For the woke dudes and dudettes to be told that trans is trans, it is a gender and gender is not sex. That is how the thinsg called nature, scicne, works. All else is social nores. Stop confusing those concepts or yourt whol life will be unhappy, unfuliflled.

MOST OF ALL we need to work again on destroying gender stereotypes. They are self evidently toxic!

Xiaoxiong I recognised what you were saying and with regards the way that some TRAs treat some TS I agree with how appalling this is.

There isn't the clear separation between TS and TRAs though that many would seek to make.

The prominant TRAs who have lobbied and pushed through legislation which has denied women their rights are often TS (including post-op).

Alongside trans rights activists predominately male Drs and politicians gave 'permission' for some males to access female single sex spaces, services, sports etc. They are often described as 'gatekeepers' to the medical treatments that some people want (which within any other branch of medicine would be seen as appropriate duty of care) but they also acted as gatekeepers to female spaces and impacted women's rights & Safeguarding.

There is an important thread which illustrates the evolution of trans-rights activism.

AngryAttackKittens wrote of it:
I'm going to point every "but the nice, harmless old school transsexuals whose movement has been unfairly appropriated by the nasty transgender people" person to this thread from now on.

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007?pg=4

But Datun I don't think anyone can tell she's male? She's 5'6 and looks really feminine - she had the surgery when she 22 and had been on hormones for a couple of years before that.

I think my experience at the theatre is what's really brought this into sharp reality for me. I know it's irrational but I feel scared at the thought of sharing the loos with someone who is/looks male and has penis, especially as many toilets have large gaps under the cubicle! I remember not going to the loo all day at primary school and when my mum would ask I'd say it's because I was scared because the boys were coming into the girls toilets and trying to look under the gaps

But Datun I don't think anyone can tell she's male? She's 5'6 and looks really feminine - she had the surgery when she 22 and had been on hormones for a couple of years before that.

The thing is, Princess, this isn't, and never has been, about individuals.

We do not make laws based on the people who won't break them. We don't make rape laws based on men who won't rape.

You can have personal empathy for your friend (and why wouldn't you), whilst understanding that as a group, men are harmful to women, including those who identify as women.

It might be an uncomfortable position to occupy, but it's rational. We have to have customs and protocols based on group analysis, not individual analysis. Which is why you then go on to say this:

I think my experience at the theatre is what's really brought this into sharp reality for me. I know it's irrational but I feel scared at the thought of sharing the loos with someone who is/looks male

This is entirely rational, of course. Your experience of men is the same as anyone else's.

You may not know the statistics, but you know the experience.

Women are routinely catcalled, steet harassed, sexually harassed, assaulted, groped, leched at, raped and murdered. The #MeToo campaign ran to 11,000,000 posts in under 24 hours.

And it's not by other women.

Men commit 98% of all sex crime and 90% of violent crime.

It doesn't mean that we think all men are predatory. It does mean that when we are in a vulnerable position (in prison, half naked, in hospital), we want to eliminate as much anxiety and risk as possible. It's instinctive. And statistically evidenced.

You're displaying empathy for a friend. You can do that, whilst maintaining the position that certain spaces should be segregated by sex, and that includes your friend.

Rowan I hadn't seen that thread. Eyes well and truly opened.

I'm going to have to sit with this for a while. These two transwomen are friends of my parents, I have always just unthinkingly accepted that because they are post-op they should be accepted in ladies loos. Live and let live kind of thing. But now, I think I've changed my mind on that. It is men that need to "be nice" and accept other men that don't conform in their spaces without violence or aggression.

Now that I think about it, both of these family friends have quite, shall we say, old fashioned to regressive ideas of what being a woman is and how women should behave in the world. I think they're buying into the same gender stereotypes that I so firmly reject.

I think there's another dimension here that I can't quite articulate. Some people who identify as trans who i've (such as the person who I saw in the ladies) seem to dress and behave in very... sexual ways.

And it makes me feel a bit uneasy - sends of alarm bills, and I'm not sure if that's me being transphobic or something else

I think my experience at the theatre is what's really brought this into sharp reality for me. I know it's irrational but I feel scared at the thought of sharing the loos with someone who is/looks male and has penis, especially as many toilets have large gaps under the cubicle! I remember not going to the loo all day at primary school and when my mum would ask I'd say it's because I was scared because the boys were coming into the girls toilets and trying to look under the gaps

Its not irrational, voyeurism and sexual harrrassment, assault does happen. Its a male-pattern crime predominantly committed by males against women and children.

This is evidence-based.

Last year in Scotland two young girls (10 & 12 years old) were sexually assaulted by a 17 year old male whose identity as a transwoman had been affirmed. The assaults, including filming under the cubicles happened in the women's toilets in supermarkets. In one case, the girl's Dad was waiting for her outside having understandably assumed that it was a single-sex female space.

transcrimeuk.com/2019/02/02/katie-dolatowski/

Now that I think about it, both of these family friends have quite, shall we say, old fashioned to regressive ideas of what being a woman is and how women should behave in the world. I think they're buying into the same gender stereotypes that I so firmly reject.

What has been most eye-opening for me is the regressive sexist and likely homophobic attitudes of the 'prominant' Drs who have 'led the way'.

The early interviews illustrate this more clearly eg the requirement that males present in very stereotypical clothing (I read one TS who described being required by the Dr to wear a skirt as proof of their commitment), the idea that creating a surgical orifice is the 'ultimate' commitment to being 'a woman' is a particularly male perspective about sex.