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.'

Rowan oh my god that story is vile. Why on earth were they allowed in the ladies in the first place? And then a women's hostel? At 17 surely they've not had surgery, and are thus not eligible. That story has honestly made me feel sick - this is why I'm thinking that maybe we should start asking for GRCs. Those poor little girls

Princess you're right, probably because she was dressing in a way that is off limits to women going about their daily lives. I feel this way about Pips Bunce - the clothes worn when dressed as "Pips" would have had any woman in the Credit Suisse office sent home to get changed into something more appropriate. And yet when a man does it, it's brave and stunning.

I read once on the trans widows thread a woman saying her husband was dressing like the kind of woman he himself was attracted to, so young, sexy, etc. And he wanted himself to be perceived as young and sexy so was wearing a miniskirt, heels, strappy lacy tops and posting photos online for validation comments like "omg so sexy".

Rowan oh my god that story is vile. Why on earth were they allowed in the ladies in the first place? And then a women's hostel?

Policies and legislation have been written to affirm a person's 'gender identity' over sex.
This has been going on for many years.
In Scotland policies are slightly further ahead than therest of the UK. THese policies have not included impact studies with regards girls and women.
The Scottish Prison policies are fully affirming of gender self-id rather than sex as a consequence predatory males are being held in female estate alongside vulnerable female prisoners.

In Scotland last year both woman & female was redefined in an act to include males intending to identify as women.
fairplayforwomen.com/scottish_stole_woman/

This is why sex matters. Women and girls need single sex spaces for safety, dignity and privacy.

That story has honestly made me feel sick - this is why I'm thinking that maybe we should start asking for GRCs.

Spaces that are single sex for females need to be simply just that.
Human beings can't change sex.

This is appalling. I don't want to harm genuine transsexuals in any way, but the thought of something happen again like with those girls in that toilet makes me feel sick with worry.

It's such a tricky situation I don't know what to think. I'm not sure I follow what's going on in Scotland? I don't think any male criminal should ever be in women's prisons even if they've had surgery

It's very simple. Theres no need for any angst or handwringing.
Womens spaces and services are for women, because they meet a need that women have. No one else is being discriminated against because women only spaces and services exist.
If other groups of people need specific spaces or services, they can campaign and fundraise, like women did.

But penny what can we do? If for example that father had seen that person enter the women's toilets where his daughter what could he have done? I'm sure most parents would want to challenge someone obviously male wearing sexualised clothing going into the ladies, but it's a very scary thing to do especially as people will be afraid of labelled as bigoted

This is appalling. I don't want to harm genuine transsexuals in any way, but the thought of something happen again like with those girls in that toilet makes me feel sick with worry.

It's such a tricky situation I don't know what to think. I'm not sure I follow what's going on in Scotland? I don't think any male criminal should ever be in women's prisons even if they've had surgery

Predatory males (including some convicted of violece and/or sexual assaults against women and children) are housed within female estate throughout the UK.

Last year as a consequence vulnerable female prisoners were sexually assaulted by Karen White in an English prison.

The speaker of the commons prevented MPs concerned for women's safety, dignity & privacy (in some prisons women have to share showers etc) from asking questions.

See James Kirkup Spectator September 2018:
'If MPs can’t debate a rapist in a woman’s jail, politics has failed'
(extract)
Last week, it was confirmed that the State put a rapist and paedophile in a women’s prison. That rapist, who uses the name Karen White, then sexually assaulted four women in that prison.

This is, of course, an outrage, a failure of public administration of the first order. Many people are angry, among them members of the Government that oversaw this failure. Many people have questions about how that failure came about. How did the Prison Service come to decide that Karen White, a person with a male body and a history of violent sexual crimes, should be put in New Hall prison? (New Hall, incidentally, also has a ‘mother and baby unit.’ The State did not just put a rapist in a women’s jail, they put a convicted paedophile in prison with children).

Was this just a catastrophic failure of judgement? Was it the result of flawed policy on the handling of transgender inmates? Did a climate of unthinking acquiescence to the demands of a highly effective transgender rights lobby contribute to this horrible mistake?

These are all legitimate questions, questions that should be debated and answered by the ministers responsible. These are the questions that Parliament exists to debate: questions about the conduct of public policy.

As I and others have noted repeatedly, a lot of politicians privately ask such questions about transgender issues, but many keep quiet about it – for fear of being labelled ‘transphobic’ or worse. I know serving ministers who have real doubts about some of these things, but dare not speak publicly." (continues)
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/09/the-state-has-failed-karen-whites-victims/

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3365319-new-kirkup-article-about-bercow-s-refusal-to-let-mps-discuss-karen-white

It isn't tricky if the priority and starting point is Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.
Female spaces were and should be single sex for safety, dignity and privacy of girls and women.

But penny what can we do? If for example that father had seen that person enter the women's toilets where his daughter what could he have done?

Many women, some men and also transsexuals have been raising this for some time.
Transsexuals including Miranda Yardley, Fionne Orlander & Seven Hex who are male have stopped using female singe sex spaces.

See Fairplay For Women for ideas of what to do, evidence and research.

fairplayforwomen.com/

That story has honestly made me feel sick - this is why I'm thinking that maybe we should start asking for GRCs.

It is worth being aware of the creation of GRA in 2004. Many of the Safeguarding and Women's Rights issues now were identified by some MPs

Important work by Vulvamort @ HairyLeggdHarpy:

" The Gender Recognition Bill

I'm going to tweet out a few of the illuminating comments from the debates that led to the GRA 2004, to save you all ploughing through Hansard.
One of the primary motivations (if not the foremost) for the bill was to avoid legalising same sex marriage. This featured VERY heavily in the discussions.

It was, in the Govt's eyes, FAR preferable to convert a same sex couple into a heterosexual couple via 'sex change' than it was to make same sex marriage legal:

And the justification of "if we allow sex to change we can sidestep same sex marriage" appeared over and over again... "

One of the obvious flaws in the entire process was the deliberate confuscation of sex and gender. The govt admitted that the two concepts were NOT THE SAME
Note the NO.
And then note the utter balderdash that follows. In this order:

1. Gender is not sex.
2. Govt will legally recognise gender
3. Gender should be legal sex
4. Acquired gender = legal sex
5. Something unexplained about man, woman and male and female
6. Sex = Gender

To recap, sex and gender are not the same, govt acknowledges, but we'd like to create a law that pretends they are, whilst still knowing they are not. Cool. This paved the way for what we've now seen evidence for: that 'female' people with penises can commit rape. As we now know, this happens" (continues) threadreaderapp.com/thread/1049289194370002945.html

RE Scotland & influence of transactivists on policies this also extends to schools as well as prisons so all children are affected:

This is an important piece of analysis:

'Children’s Rights Impact Assessment'
(extract)

Foreword
Women and Girls in Scotland is a grassroots, feminist, women’s campaign group set up to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls. Current UK equality legislation recognises that women and girls need legal protections on the basis of sex.
However, these protections are in danger of being undermined by current policies and proposed legislative changes. As such, we are undertaking a process of reviewing policies and proposals in order to identify where the needs of women and girls are not being met or where their rights are not being upheld.
We identified the document Supporting Transgender Young People: Guidance for Schools in Scotland as one such proposal that merited review. We have assessed this proposal using a children’s rights-based approach, with an impact assessment model developed by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland. This
model was developed to offer policy and decision makers a tool to help them “fulfil their responsibilities to respect the rights of children and young people set out in national and international law”.1
We are currently waiting for a formal response from the CYPCS in relation to our Children’s Rights Impact Assessment. This version has been submitted to the CYPCS; we have removed the few sections where we did not make a submission.
We may update this Children’s Rights Impact Assessment once we have heard back from the CYPCS, at which time we will also issue our assessment as a report that we will then move to share with schools, local authorities and other stakeholders." (continues)

Among the councils which have endorsed the guidance produced by LGBT Youth and the Scottish Trans Alliance, Glasgow, West Lothian, Clackmannanshire and South Lanarkshire said they were unable to publish an assessment of the likely impact on other pupils as they had not carried one out. Edinburgh City Council failed to respond. The office of the Scottish Children's Commissioner, Education Scotland and the Scottish Government have all also backed the LGBT Youth guide.

Scotland's Children's commissioner said: "We did not undertake and therefore do not hold" any research looking at how other pupils might be affected by the guidance.

wgscotland.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Childrens-Rights-Impact-Assessment-by-Women-and-Girls-in-Scotland.pdf

cf Herald in Scotland article 25th June 2018
"Schools 'forget' girls in rush to adopt pro-trans guidance campaigners claim as Christian group threatens legal action"
(extract)
THE rights of Scottish schoolgirls are being undermined by rules allowing pupils to adopt a different gender and share changing rooms, it has been claimed, as it emerged schools are unprepared for the controversial overhaul.

A series of Freedom of Information (FoI) requests have revealed that councils have widely backed guidelines produced by organisations campaigning for the rights of transgender people but have not considered how the new approach will affect children – particularly girls.

The new guidelines tell teachers that if a transgender pupil wishes to share a changing room with "other young people who share their gender identity," they should be allowed to do so.

"There is no reason for parents or carers of the other pupils to be informed," it adds.

The guidelines say young people should be able to compete in the sports events for the gender they identify with, and says if other pupils are uncomfortable using changing rooms or toilets with transgender pupils, they should use other facilities or wait until the transgender pupil is done.

However none of the councils involved, nor the children’s commissioner, nor Education Scotland have carried out an equality impact assessment to ensure the rights and wellbeing of other pupils are unaffected. This means the impact on other students has not been taken into account." (continues)

James Morton, manager of the Scottish Trans Alliance, said EQIAs had generally not been carried out because the document distributed by councils was guidance, not an official policy.

"If it became an official policy position they should do an EQIA and I'm sure it would show that there isn't any negative impact on other pupils," he said. (continues)
www.heraldscotland.com/news/16311379.schools-forget-girls-in-rush-to-adopt-pro-trans-guidance-campaigners-claim-as-christian-group-threatens-legal-action/

This all seems crazy to me - allowing post operative transsexuals to share toilets with women and girls is one thing, but the idea that any man can enter a toilet with a child seems extremely short sighted.

As a teenager I would have been mortified to have to share with a boy, whatever he wore! (although I was at a convent - bad in some ways but it was good to learn free of the influence of boys!)

PrincessPlummy It is really worth reading this thread, it may take a little while but is well-referenced. The majority of people are still unaware of what has and is happening:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

You're not imagining the sexual tone to it, Princess. While there are some genuinely dysphoric transsexuals a lot of the time it's about sexual stimulation and fetish. Fetishising what they believe to be "womanhood". Finding the experience of presenting as a "woman" and their own appearance a massive turn on. Sometimes it's about being a dominant version of a woman amongst biological women and enjoying their discomfort with that. It's messed up.

I can see you're still feeling nauseous about the toilet attacks so I won't mention the menstruation fetishists to you just yet, but they're a real thing too. (Sorry!)

Hmmm that stuff about autogynephilia is... enlightening.
Menstruation fetishists???

Honestly it is concerning. I was following someone on Shon faye on twitter (I posted a link about their book in another thread) and I often noticed how some of their clothing choices looked - very sexualised, in a way that did seem fetishistic, so now this AGP seems to make more sense. Although I think shon used to ID as a gay man maybe is actually a homosexual transsexual??

'The Elephant In The Room'
by Sue Donym
concludes:
If there’s one thing you ought to do, it’s discuss the elephant. Please discuss the elephant. Don’t leave it rampaging around the room, destroying everything in its path.

Autogynephilia is a weird concept. It can be inaccessible. But it needs to be discussed in the LGBT community, and openly. Not talking about it is causing way too much damage — we have had our organizations taken over, our spaces colonized, and our sexuality redefined. Thanks to these men, you can no longer say ‘I am, gay, meaning exclusively same-sex attracted’ without being labelled a TERF. That’s not a good thing.

Dancing around the subject isn’t helpful. While the ultimate result of autogynephilia is homophobic rhetoric, is important to remember that a sexual fantasy, not homophobia, motivates such rhetoric. That is the root cause of the problem.

Worse is the effect on autogynephiles themselves. ‘Transgender’ is not an umbrella. It is a term that erases the very different motivations and causes of various forms of gender dysphoria. It does people who claim the label absolutely no favors. The original inclusion of the ‘T’ was designed for homosexual transsexuals, and include them with other same-sex attracted individuals. It was not designed to include autogynephiles, who are heterosexual males, or ‘queer’ individuals who are heterosexual but believe dying their hair some variation of neon should mean they are included. Making ‘transgender’ an umbrella not only erases the very different causes and struggles associated with homosexual transsexuality, it also obscures the causes of, and struggles associated with autogynephilia. Autogynephilia is not a condition I would wish on anyone. It is a unique, somewhat bizarre struggle, and reading through many of the accounts of it was quite sad. It can make its sufferers lonely and unable to connect with intimate partners. But enabling it, and on a grand scale, has caused immense damage to homosexuals, particularly lesbians, who have lost almost all their spaces and communities to colonization.

Please discuss the elephant."
medium.com/@sue.donym1984/the-elephant-in-the-room-dc822144a81b

Spartacus I’m not sure you’re right there? I’m pretty sure you need surgery to get a grc and access the ladies, otherwise what would the point be??

You don't. The criteria for a GRC is you must be over 18, have lived as the opposite sex for two years (whatever regressive stereotypes that means) and have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

The reforms to the GRA want to eliminate all three criteria to make it just form filling exercise.

No surgery, no hormones, no nothing.

Sorry, I meant the current criteria is no surgery, no hormones.

Future criteria is no diagnosis of gender dysphoria and no living as the opposite sex, either. Your dad could do it tomorrow.

Well reading this other thread saying most trans people don’t want surgery... then they are cross dressers surely? Well I guess I’m kind of gc in that I do believe you should have surgery otherwise how can you be ‘transsexual’? A person with a penis is most definitely a man imo - not a transsexual, and certainly not a woman of any kind.

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.

They have to, though, don't they? They can't identify as someone with a uterus, or Fallopian tubes, or who is menstruating. What else, other than stereotypes, is there? Clothes, make up. Everything superficial.

They don't ever identify as a strong, powerful woman who doesn't give a fuck about hairy legs.

In order to be perceived as female, they have to inhabit the most stereotypical femininity they can. It's unbelievably regressive for women. And it's something that they utterly believe should be encouraged.

princess, I don't know if someone has already mentioned it, but this thread would be useful for you. And it's still ongoing. It's by and for women who are at the coalface of transgenderism.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3101834-trans-widows-escape-committee

Take wine.

Spartacus I’m not sure you’re right there? I’m pretty sure you need surgery to get a grc and access the ladies, otherwise what would the point be??

See Fairplay For Women:
'The vast majority of male-born transwomen still have a penis'
(extract)
How many transgender people medically transition?
In 2011, GIRES estimated that only 20% of the UK transgender population were likely to seek medical treatment for their condition at some stage. Based on a UK trans prevalence of 1% and assuming a 50:50 split of males and females that means there are 200,000 male-born transgender people in the UK will no body modifications whatsoever. Of the 50,000 trans-identifying males that do seek medical treatment most of these would be expected to be undergoing hormone treatment and/or breast implants. Only a very small proportion of this 20% will have genital reconstruction surgery.

No one knows for sure how many transwomen keep their penis, but there are fewer than 10 surgeons in the UK who can undertake the relevant operation. Even if they each performed one operation every single day this would still only represent an absolute maximum of 3,500 surgeries each year. The actual number performed is likely to be very much smaller than this. An estimate of just a few hundred operations each year would not be unreasonable.

Conclusions:
We don’t know how many transgender people there are in the UK but estimates are up to 1%. The vast majority do not have a GRC and so remain legally the sex they were born. The vast majority also do not seek medical treatment so retain the anatomy of their birth.
Contrary to public perception the overwhelming majority of male-born transgender people retain their penis and are fully male-bodied."
fairplayforwomen.com/penis/

(NB GIRES is a trans rights advocay charity and prominant lobbyist)