Defence lawyer says that the Gender Recognition Act has placed the State in an impossible position with regard to transgender prisoners

[stumbledin]

This is about the situation in Ireland but thought I would post as it is interesting that some law practitioners are looking at the illogical situation in terms of legal rights. (There was an earlier thread about lawyers in Australia? New Zealand? questioning the right of clinic to start children on puberty blockers.)

^The law is challenging for the courts and the IPS since there is, potentially, a safety issue for women inmates housed alongside a male-bodied prisoner.

Currently, a pre-operative, pre-hormone therapy, male-to-female transgender prisoner is being held in Limerick women’s prison.

This is understood to be the first time that an inmate, registered as male at birth, has been housed in a women’s prison in Ireland.

When before the court last July, the prisoner was in possession of a gender recognition certificate.

It is understood that the prisoner was assigned a high level of monitoring after being convicted of ten counts of sexual assault and one count of cruelty against a child.

The prisoner is accompanied by two officers at all times while in the common areas of the detention facility.^

www.lawsociety.ie/gazette/top-stories/male-bodied-transgender-inmate-housed-with-women-prisoners/

Thirdfiddle

From The Mirror However, she was in possession of a gender recognition certificate by the time her case came before the court last July, and is now being accommodated with other female prisoners.

The wording reads as if this prisoner obtained the GRC post crimes and pre trial.

If self-ID is introduced, it won’t be long before this becomes a common practice.

Current policy in the UK says that prisoners should be allocated to a prison according to their "legally recognised gender".

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/825621/transgender-pf.pdf

thirdfiddle

Datun, I assumed they meant the GRC itself since in Ireland that is obtained by self ID.

Yes, I think you're right. Even though we all said that would happen, when it does, I'm still so shocked that they didn't see it coming. It's almost like I'm trying to find another reason.

But yes, you're right. They are completely blindsided that somebody would identify as a woman if they weren't forced and absolutely prostrate with distress over the entire issue.

The stupidity is almost difficult to grasp.

But yes, you're right. They are completely blindsided that somebody would identify as a woman if they weren't forced and absolutely prostrate with distress over the entire issue.

Which serves to underline the misogyny of the males nodding this through. They seem unable to grasp the bad actor risk because lowering your status to that of women is inconcievable.

Another thing that really concerns me about this is the recording of stats. This person is a sex and child abuse offender, these crimes will be recorded as committed by a female presumably. If this is the case we're going to see the number of female sex offenders skyrocketing when in reality, they haven't.

They considered the prison problem in 2003. They just didn't care much.
See David Lammy:

Oh, and re: getting a GRC after conviction vs before, one of the earliest GRCs was issued to a murderer and rapist in order in prison.
In fact, James Barrett of Charing Cross gender identity clinic argued, in court, that in order to fulfil the requirements of 'living as a woman' to get his GRC, he HAD to be transferred to the women's prison.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3370661-2009-case-of-a-judge-ordering-an-intact-male-rapist-into-a-female-prison-because-he-had-a-GRC#add_message

2009, so a full decade of 'put this poor rapist in with the women, it's cruel to him not to', and only "the sort of women who enjoy conflict" (referring to female prisoners) will object.

Have there been any cases of women transitioning after conviction and being moved to men's prisons?

That last quote, Barracker!

What's the matter with these men? Are they totally incapable of thinking about women's feelings, dignity and safety at all? Stupid question.

They considered the prison problem in 2003. They just didn't care much.

They expected a tiny number of people to apply for and get GRCs. With only about 3000 male born GRC holders in the country, assuming they offend at the same rate as the general population, how many of them might we expect to be imprisoned at some point in their lives?

Once you expand this population to the entire trans umbrella obtaining GRCs, even without considering those who transition with the intention of accessing victims, the prison issue becomes an enormous problem.

riven with castration anxiety

PREACH.

In my last post my point was that they may have thought that it was so unlikely that it would never happen. But they should still have thought about what they would do if this extremely unlikely (in their view) event did actually happen.

Of course they should. I can't remember which indefitable FWR regular dug out extracts from Hansard and posted them here a few months ago, or maybe last year - but what an eye opener that was. A small number of MPs asking awkward questions and being fobbed off on all points with patronising variants on 'This will never happen, but even if it did we're talking tiny numbers here'. The warnings were all there and were ignored in the interests of pushing the GRA through with minimum discussion. Professional advice also ignored.

It sticks in my craw to say so but from what I can recall of the thread the critics were largely Tory MPs I can't stand, e.g. Norman Tebbit, Anne Widdicombe, no doubt motivated by social conservatism, religion and a deep loathing of New Labour, but tribalism is of course how we got into this mess.

The thing is, the esteemed James Barrett, he of the 'how very dare uppity Female prisoners object to my rapist patient being placed with them', is also the very same esteemed James Barrett who submitted to the Transgender equality enquiry:

The converse is the ever-increasing tide of referrals of patients in prison serving long or indeterminate sentences for serious sexual offences. These vastly outnumber the number of prisoners incarcerated for more ordinary, non-sexual, offences. It has been rather naïvely suggested that nobody would seek to pretend transsexual status in prison if this were not actually the case.

There are, to those of us who actually interview the prisoners, in fact very many reasons why people might pretend this.

These vary from the opportunity to have trips out of prison through to a desire for a transfer to the female estate (to the same prison as a co-defendant) through to the idea that a parole board will perceive somebody who is female as being less dangerous through to a [false] belief that hormone treatment will actually render one less dangerous through to wanting a special or protected status within the prison system and even (in one very well evidenced case that a highly concerned Prison Governor brought particularly to my attention) a plethora of prison intelligence information suggesting that the driving force was a desire to make subsequent sexual offending very much easier, females being generally perceived as low risk in this regard. I am sure that the Governor concerned would be happy to talk about this

In other words, James understands perfectly that women are genuinely put at risk by placing men in with them.
But James is absolutely still in favour of putting male rapists and murderers in female prisons in unlimited quantities, so long as HE gets to handpick, personally approve and rubber-stamp their definitely-a-woman/not-a-real-woman status.

God complex.

twitter.com/HairyLeggdHarpy/status/1049289194370002945?s=19

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Thanks, Barracker, so it was Twitter, not MN.

Barracker

Doesn't the screenshot you posted of the James Barratt quote pre-date his submission about GRA reform? I'd assumed he'd recognised the problem and changed his mind. I realise you may have evidence to the contrary.

2009: put this rapist with the uppity women
2015: some male criminals are only pretending to be women
2019: Barrett sums up the attitude that he thinks health care workers should have towards trans people: “Trans men are men and trans women are women.”
2019: “The differences between men and women are a lot slighter than everybody thinks they are, and training can easily overtake them,” women would run as fast as men if they just trained harder

He's not evolved.

Thanks for those links Barracker.

I thought he'd started talking sense at the time of the transgender equality inquiry, but clearly he's gone back to his original views. Disappointing but not particularly surprising given his line of work. His business interests depend on keeping the trans lobby on side.

The lack of ethics and integrity in the medical profession is appalling.

I think his position isn't unusual.
People assume that expressing any concern about 'self-ID' suggests an understanding of women's rights, but the reality for a lot of people is more "I'm actually ok with the giant abusive lie, but let's keep numbers under control lest I look too ridiculous to keep up the pretence further"

Or for Barrett it seems more "I am the God who grants the crown, none but I shall declare it so"

People believe that Gender recognition panels, or certificates, or diagnoses of unhappiness, or even castration give a veneer of acceptability to the lie that men can become women. But all of these contrived nonsenses are worth nothing. It's all self-ID in the end. Just rubber-stamped by fools, or not.

Just Rubber stamped by fools or not

💪🌟🌟

Re David Lammas not seeing a problem in 2003.

Is that the same person who signed off the single gender = single sex nhs ward policy?

Sorry, that should read ‘Lammy’ but the iPad thought better.

No, Lammy was 'whats the big deal about men in women's prisons'
and Lansley was 'whats the big deal about men in women's wards'

TBF, easy to mix up the various men who are all 'whats the big deal, women'

they all start to blur into one repulsively homogeneous, misogynist mass.

My mistake. The are indeed similar names and Similar ideas.