Is it only white middle class women who are GC?

[Ziegfeld]

I recently summoned courage to have “the talk” with an old friend who is gay. I wanted to know his current thoughts on sex based rights, and I thought (as we are old friends) even if we disagreed we could have a civilised conversation about it.

Unfortunately I think he called me transphobic about five minutes into the conversation when I asked, so if we say let’s have self ID, how do we tell whether someone genuinely believes themselves to be a TW or is a man simply announcing he is a woman solely for the purposes of accessing women-only spaces for bad intent. ( His answers to that were “well we need safeguarding” and “there are hardly any TWs, this isn’t a real concern” and “well ideally we should all just have gender neutral changing rooms”)

Some more things were said by both of us which I won’t go into here because I am sure we’ve all heard them before.

But then he said that it’s only white middle class women (like me) who have a problem with self ID and allowing TW access to women’s spaces. He said that working class women and women of colour have no problem at all with it.

I don’t think this is true - look at Allison Bailey for example. But I would be interested to know what other MNers think. Is this a race and class issue? Or is it that white middle class women tend to have more platforms to speak out than other women?

Still waiting for the specific benefits for females of accepting males into any single sex spaces and services.

And 22 divided by 12 is...

If each prison of 270 women (i.e the size of a small primary school) has between 1 and 2 male prisoners in it, then I find it unlikely that incarcerated women "will probably never even come across a trans women".

@barleybadminton

Please provide evidence that disputes this.

It's generally accepted that if you make a claim then it's down to you to provide the evidence which supports it. I am not aware of any such evidence. In fact given no-one knows for sure how many trans women exist in the UK, let alone how many have had surgery, then such a claim cannot possibly be made.

In that case you should provide the evidence for this claim that you made:

The truth is the vast amount of women prisoners will probably never even come across a trans women, and if they do it's likely to be someone fiully transitioned and serving time for a non violent offence.

You should provide evidence for all three claims:

1. Most women prisoners will probably never even come across a transwoman
2. if they do it's likely to be someone fiully transitioned
3. it's likely to be someone serving time for a non violent offence

You made the claims. Now provide the evidence.

Love the way the self identified safeguarding expert has now self identified as an expert on women in prison with evidently the same level of knowledge

You made the claims. Now provide the evidence.

I've posted the criteria the MOJ use when considering transferring someone to the female estate.

Please also take into account that where primary schoolchildren only spend weekdays between 8:30am and 3:30pm in school, and still end up knowing each other, prisoners are in prison all day, seven days a week, without time out for half-term holidays.

I find it implausible that a smaller population of incarcerated women will mostly never notice the male prisoners.

Maybe this evidence presented to parliamentary WEC

committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

Some interesting numbers stated here that have not been discredited.

Most if not all of my gay friends are against self ID. They also - like Matthew Parris who helped found Stonewall - think the movement is not only now militating against women's rights but undermining young people who might be gay but are now being persuaded they are trans. With all the uncertain but mostly irreversible medical procedures. And dictated by ancient "gender" tropes which means a young man who likes tutus, poetry and gymnastics is not "male" and a girl who likes football, science and boy's clothes is automatically not "female".

It's one of the most regressive movements of all time.

Yes most of my friends are white. My black family are more concerned about what is happening to women, gays (including trans) in their home countries.

Yep. You are right. I cannot quickly put my fingers on the evidence for the 95%.

However, you have also admitted you cannot support that the majority of transitioned males have their penis removed.

However, we have had a women who has experienced harassment and sexual abuse in jail by a transitioned male post details of her abuse here on MN.

Something you have not acknowledged at all. But maybe her experience does not count at all to some posters.

fairplayforwomen.com/penis/

@barleybadminton

You made the claims. Now provide the evidence.

I've posted the criteria the MOJ use when considering transferring someone to the female estate.

That doesn't back up any of your three claims:

1. Most women prisoners will probably never even come across a transwoman
2. if they do it's likely to be someone fiully transitioned
3. it's likely to be someone serving time for a non violent offence

That link says nothing about how many male prisoners are placed in female prisons.

It says nothing about how many of those male prisoners still have male genitalia (assuming that's what you mean by 'fully transitioned').

It says nothing about the offences that those male prisoners have been convicted of.

Try again.

@Helleofabore

Maybe this evidence presented to parliamentary WEC

committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

Some interesting numbers stated here that have not been discredited.

Well they obviously didn't impress the WEC.

Yes. The dissemination of the data shows that a higher proportion of trans people are in prison for sex crimes.

Not sure how barley can claim that so few are in jail for non-violent crime compared to the proportion in prison for sex crime.

I do look forward to proof of that.

@VestofAbsurdity

Still waiting for the specific benefits for females of accepting males into any single sex spaces and services.

I think you'll be waiting a while

Well they obviously didn't impress the WEC.

Tell us again the make up of the committee, what it was for and the recommendations it made was significantly different from what had been seen previously?

The group FWS say 80-95% of people who say they are trans choose to have no medical treatment at all – no surgery, no drugs, not even therapy

And their source for this statement is a submission from GIRES.
data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/women-and-equalities-committee/transgender-equality/written/19292.pdf

Not to mention:

Evidence of political capture and political bias that renders that committee and its findings... well, shall we say problematic?

Evidence that TQ+ and women's issues need complete separation as TQ+ politics make it impossible to give equal consideration or balance to any group that the politics have conflict with the interests of

Evidence that what is now needed is a separate inquiry into female conflict of interest, needs and issues which focuses on female experience, female evidence and is led by those not focused on capture and redirection of anything female into TQ+ political ownership. Rather than an inquiry wholly dominated by TQ+ politics and interests, which regards female focused groups as hostile by their mere existence. Usefully, the evidence sessions were recorded and evidence this as much if not more than anything else.

#thisisntworkingforwomen

But very helpful to have it so demonstrated.

I'd like to revisit the case of Karen White. While at New Hall in 2017, White sexually assaulted two women there.

Singlehandedly, White's crimes would have increased sexual assault figures in the female estate by 33-50% from the figures in 2012 and 2013.

Yes, the complete confusion that Nokes seems to have spread with their interviews shows a rather limited understanding of just what they understood were the issues and the content of the presentations.

Shows more on how people can close themselves off to seeing reality if they believe in propaganda to the degree that Caroline Nokes obviously does. They cannot give a coherent interview that accurately describes the outcomes even.

But I am also very happy to wait for barley to describe the new and significant gains made from the findings of that WEP committee. Because I looked and saw nothing very significant. Maybe they can convince me it will have a significant positive impact on the lives of trans people or on females.

Over to you barley. I look forward to it … and the other evidence you have been asked for from all the other threads you come onto and never provide robust evidence.

Just joining this conversation, thanks for the info Barley. I am reading up on anything I can find re prisons. as I’ve heard some worrying things.

The criteria used for assessing the potential risks of placing a trans women in a women's prison are as follows:

I did notice in the document you shared that trans ppl with a GRC MUST be treated as their legal gender presumably meaning that none of the assessment you mentioned above would occur as it would not normally occur for a female prisoner.

I have read elsewhere that in the recent court case the Ministry of Justice stated that all tw with a GRC automatically go into a female prison. No risk assessment required. That doesn’t sound safe for female prisoners seeing as there has been more than one convicted rapist/sex offender/murderer with a GRC?

I did notice in the document you shared that trans ppl with a GRC MUST be treated as their legal gender presumably meaning that none of the assessment you mentioned above would occur as it would not normally occur for a female prisoner.

No hey will still be risk assessed and can be held in the male estate or placed in a segragted unit such as the one at Downview where they would not have unsupervised contact with other prisoners.

4.65 When considering whether to hold a transgender woman with a GRC with other women, or in
separate accommodation, all risks need to be taken into account. Any significant risks posed
by a transgender woman with a GRC to other women, or by other prisoners to the individual,
should be assessed in order to make sure that appropriate accommodation, regime and
supervision is provided to manage such risks appropriately.
4.66 If risk is particularly high, it may not be appropriate to hold a transgender woman with a GRC in
the women’s estate, either with the general population, or on a bespoke unit.

@Helleofabore

Please explain to me how placing male prisoners in the women's estate has improved these numbers.

Yes. Still waiting for the specific benefits for females in accepting males into the female prison estate.

I don't think anyone has ever claimed there will be benefits, the question is is there a risk of harm. The recent Judicial Review noted that in 2019 there were 11 recorded sexual assaults committed against trans women in the male estate and no assaults committed by trans women in the female estate. That's almost one in ten trans women in the prison system sexually assaulted in just one year. Trans women in the men's estate are around 30 times more likely to be sexually assaulted then men or women in either estate. I would hope you agree that is an unacceptable situation, and as such, if risk assessment procedures can be implemented which do not place women at rsk, then one way to address this is to allow some trans women who are assessed as low risk into the female estate - with some additional safeguards such as not sharing cells/showers with non trans prisoners.

Regarding the recent judicial review it's perhaps worthy of note that the former prisoner who brought it was quite clear that unlike many here she did not object to the presence of trans women in the female estate, it was only trans women convicted of sexual offences she felt should not be permitted.

I would think the poor woman had to make very, very sure she'd covered her back in not getting an automatic answer of 'you just don't like TW' in asking would it please be ok if she please didn't have to be locked up with a sex offender who was harming her, because the TW's choices including to harm her appeared to matter more to everyone than her not being harmed did.

There isn't any way to make this sound ok, it really isn't. Female people are not a therapeutic resource ffs.

Many male prisoners are at risk of violence. Do you propose moving them all into the women's estate?