Telegraph - Women prisoners who call transgender inmates ‘he’ or ‘him’ face extra jail time

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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/08/women-prisoners-call-transgender-inmates-face-extra-jail-time/

This is an utterly disgraceful abomination of human rights. First they put male rapists and murderers in women's prisons then the women are punished if they won't go along with the despicable pretence.

Extract

Women prisoners who call transgender inmates by the wrong pronoun could face extra time in jail under equality rules, says a justice minister.

Female inmates who deliberately call a transgender woman “he” or “him” could be punished under rules barring “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”.

The penalties will be decided by an independent adjudicator, a visiting judge, who has the power to impose additional days if they feel the abuse merits such a punishment.

The disclosure comes amid a growing debate over the policy of holding male-to-female transgender prisoners in women’s jails.

This summer, the High Court rejected a legal challenge to prevent transgender inmates with convictions for sexual or violent offences against women being imprisoned alongside other women.

In 2019, there were 34 transgender women who were still legally male detained at the 12 women’s prisons in England and Wales.

We can't post archive links now but the full article is out there if anyone wants to look.

@Evesgarden

Men shouldn't be womens prisons full stop *@NiceGerbil*

So feck off with your ' I agree if its for bullying'

FFS!

Just catching up!

I've never been told to fuck off before! That's a first for me

The police should record sex not gender. Maybe both I mean so what. GRC hardly any people and it's a legal right. Too few to skew anything.
Police recording self ID gender only is a disaster in more ways than the obvious. And the obvious are bad enough. We only have the stats for rape to go on. Scots don't even have that I don't think. Different definition.
No victim should ever have to refer to a male attacker/ sex offender etc as she/ her when giving a statement, giving evidence etc.
No male should be in women's estate full stop. Ever. I believe it goes against some international protocols even. Government just thinks so what.
Putting male sex offenders in women's prisons is unconscionable. An absolute violation of the most basic of moral or ethical behaviour.

I explained at great length earlier why I think as I do.

Bullies pick a vulnerable area. And they are relentless. That area could be anything. There can be no list. Anything. The current policy to deal with bullying should be applied to anyone carrying out that behaviour. Whatever the vulnerability they have found to focus on is.

Additionally.

There are enough problems with prisons to get sidetracked into essentially standard bullying procedures being applied to inmates. There is no update. Nothing has changed.

I also feel this story was fished for. Reading it, it strongly suggests that the person was asked unexpectedly is misgendering bullying. And they said well no if accident etc yes if deliberate pointed etc there's a bullying policy it's the same for all bullying here's the procedure.

The telegraph speaks to right leaning traditional types. The posher publication for the PC gawn mad people. This article is for them. IMO. And it's designed to let them have a good old froth.

I would not want one set of prisoners to be excluded from falling under the policy. Because it's fairly obvious that the likely vulnerability used will be trans status.

I want prisons to be safer, both male and female. And YOIs.
And hosp wards and gyms and swimming clubs and everything.

The priority in moving towards that goal is to revert to single sex never single gender. Until that's done we can't even start on the things we were doing to protect women and girls more, before all this bollocks came along.

I don't think my views will change. I don't think they're as bad as to warrant a fuck off though but obv everyone should post as they feel.

A woman potentially having to serve more days/weeks/months in prison than she otherwise would have because she can’t or won’t go along with this misogynistic, male supremacist pretence. We should indeed be raging.

And as you say, Datun, she can’t walk away. And these are vulnerable women.

This is state mandated female subservience. Subordination to their male overlords.

Yes, exactly.

This shit, apart from being vile in itself, hands the next election to the Tories and may well scupper the SNP.

I'm going to get told to fuck off again in a sec.

Reading the posts. There is an understandable approach of. TW in female prison, each individual harbours antipathy towards women and will act on that. In any of the ways that happen with dodgy males. From the little things that read as creepy / threat (physical stance etc) to serious sexual assault.

While women in prison would be unlikely (or vanishingly unlikely) to bully a TW seriously and use the fact they're male as the vulnerability to target.

Don't take this the wrong way.
NO MALE should be in women's estate ever. Irrespective of their crime, their stage of transition, how long they have been TW for, the assessed risk etc.

I can't understand why that form of actual bullying should be excluded though.

Women can and do bully others. Gang up on people. We all know that surely? Esp from school?

And we can and do get violent. And we can and do use words in ways that are incredibly cruel.

Reminder. No males there ever. It's a disgrace.

However it's surely not a stretch to think that an old school transsexual who transitioned yonks ago and is inside for fraud or something. Could be bullied by a group of women. No way to get away. Day in day out. Targeting what is most likely to really upset.

I am well aware that-
Women in prison are an extremely vulnerable group. And a very different profile to male estate. In so many ways. I am very well aware.
Also that males as a group are a risk to women and girls full stop. A large minority enjoy things from subtle but intended to, and causing discomfort, fear etc. To rape, murder. Yes I know that as well.

But I just do not think that it is ok to take the EXISTING bullying policy.

)Contrary to some posts this has not been changed. It already exists. Nothing has been added for pronouns etc.).

I do not think it is right to take that policy and add that this policy specially excludes any bullying that involves the targets trans status.

I think we have bigger fish to fry.

Let them get on with applying the existing policy about bullying.

There are bigger fish to fry.

How do you mean?

The Tories are currently in power! This is current.

And imo the other parties are doing their best to be totally unelectable. This topic and others.

And Scotland have different policies afaik. I assume this is England Wales only?

However it's surely not a stretch to think that an old school transsexual who transitioned yonks ago and is inside for fraud or something.

This reasoning is bizarre. Why is the bestowing of wrong sex pronouns being forced upon women more justified if the person is "inside for fraud or something"? Why would it apparently be less justified if they are violent? I don't believe in gender identity ideology and don't think people should have their speech compelled in controlling and abusive ways. Ever.

I'm not going to tell you to fuck off, I just don't agree with you and don't follow your reasoning. I'm sure we can disagree relatively civilly.

Yes totally and I can see my views are not popular!

I simply feel that bullying focuses on a noticed thing that really hits home with the target.

No one should be bullied in prison.

I don't see why bullying (persistent targeting using whatever upsets or scares the target loads) should have ONE exception written IN.

I want all males out of the women's estate. Full stop.

The current situation is outrageous. Unimaginable. But... In place. For how long? I don't think we know.

And it remains despite. Karen white, others sexually harrassing in various ways. Strongly worded No. From those involved in the prison service. Governer recently retired. Psychiatrists who work with prisoners. Current prison officers. Etc.
Recent judgement CONFIRMED it was legal and the right thing to do. And agreed it came with risk to women for fucks sake.

I just don't know how this could all have happened. And behind the scenes. Kept quiet. It's incredibly sinister.

But no. I have no interest in altering current policy on bullying to exclude one specific area where that policy does not apply.

And I also totally understand why the majority are very very angry.

This is a total shitshow. It's appalling. So many reached breaking point years ago even. And those who have more recently come to the topic just find out more and more and it's just incomprehensible. All of it.

I totally get it. I'm not saying anyone is wrong to react with utter rage.

On this one particular thing I don't go with majority opinion. I feel my reasons are reasonable. But I totally understand if others don't.

It’s the conflation of deliberately using wrong sex pronouns with bullying that’s the problem, Gerbil. I deliberately choose not to use wrong sex pronouns. I refuse to do so because it compromises and undermines my human rights to do so.

I refuse to give succour or validation to an ideology that seeks to limit my rights and autonomy, and every time a woman refers to a male person as “she”, she is doing just that. Referring to these males as “she” - even the “old school transsexuals”, some of whom, let’s not forget, were very active in leading us to where we are now - bolsters this toxic, misogynistic ideology, gives it oxygen, makes it stronger, helps it spread.

You might as well make women address bog standard male people as “my supreme lord and master” in every interaction with them. Would we do that? No, because the toxicity and male supremacism is on the surface and very evident, and we don’t want to be seen to be like that in our “liberal” society.

But clothe the same dynamic in “trans” and suddenly it’s not only acceptable, it’s mandatory. Just like if you clothe whopping great breaches of safeguarding in “trans”, suddenly they’re super acts of progress and anyone trying to flag them up as a danger is just a bigoted dinosaur.

I refuse to go along with this lie, not because I’m a bully, but because I am standing up to being bullied.

I have that choice because I’m not in prison. I can choose who I associate with.

But what about the women in prison who could call these males “she” but just don’t want to go along with the gaslighting? With the authoritarian thought and speech policing? Who have been bullied and abused by enough male people already, who are being bullied and abused by the mere fact of these particular male prisoners being housed in the female estate? Why should they have this woman-lessening ideology forced upon them? Why should they have to collude in their own degradation, or risk their punishment being increased?

It’s an absolute outrage.

It's about BULLYING.

And the policy is unchanged.

And yes in day to day life. With an individual. Introduced to friend of friend. New joiner work. Chatting to a few randoms in the pub. I would use their name as given. And I wouldn't say he etc in meetings or eg where's Jane is he at the bar.
I just wouldn't.
If they were twats I would avoid talking to them obv. Same as any other person I disliked.

For me it's about orgs, activists, individuals who talk shit in the papers etc.

It's not about individuals. For me.

Like I say I do get it though.

This idea that it’s women who are ganging up on poor, vulnerable biologically male trans people - wasn’t this a storyline trotted out in Emmerdale or some such recently?

When the reality is that it’s women who are being bullied and harassed by these male prisoners - forced to shower with them, forced to witness them exposing themselves: victims of state enabled sexual offending that they have no recourse to justice for (as in exhibitionism and voyeurism from the very fact of them sharing these intimate spaces, leaving aside for the moment the actual sexual assaults that we know have happened), forced to pander to their fantasy and refer to them as “she” on pain of serving more time if they don’t.

The Emmerdale plot was an assault on common sense and reality, and just another misogynistic blow against vulnerable women. Just another brushstroke in the portrait of women as cruel, privileged aggressors, and biologically male trans people as harmless, defenceless and powerless.

No. It’s bullshit. If no one was indulging the illusion that these males are actually women in the first place, then they wouldn’t have even this hypothetical vulnerability to this form of “bullying” because if everyone was recognising them as male in a completely neutral way, if it was just seen as the simple, uncontested fact it is, it wouldn’t be capable of carrying that sting anyway.

We should be finding ways for people to live with REALITY, instead of finding ways to make everybody lie so that some people can be shielded from a potentially painful truth.

And we should definitely not be putting male prisoners in women’s prisons, however they identify.

That's not what I said at all.

And yes in day to day life. With an individual. Introduced to friend of friend. New joiner work. Chatting to a few randoms in the pub. I would use their name as given. And I wouldn't say he etc in meetings or eg where's Jane is he at the bar. I just wouldn’t.

That’s your choice. I wouldn’t call a person I knew to be biologically male “she”. I just wouldn’t.

I see it as upholding structural misogyny and male supremacism. No.

@NiceGerbil

That's not what I said at all.

No?

However it's surely not a stretch to think that an old school transsexual who transitioned yonks ago and is inside for fraud or something. Could be bullied by a group of women. No way to get away. Day in day out. Targeting what is most likely to really upset.

This sounded a lot like that storyline to me.

Not heard that storyline.

The approach of seeing individuals with certain characteristics as homogeneous is not for me at all.

It's what the other 'side' do to women who say no. With increasingly wild and contradictory motivations applied to all.
It's just not my thing.

This is a massive institutional and structural problem. Institutions who run everything in the country lying etc.

I have no desire to be an arse IRL to anyone I meet tbh. If I did it would change nothing at all.

The plan to get the prison England Wales policy on bullying updated to include a specific exception for anything related to trans ID.

What is anyone going to do about that?

The approach of seeing individuals with certain characteristics as homogeneous is not for me at all.

Does that mean you don’t think women should be allowed to recognise that all male people are male? Because that’s the extent of the homogeneity. Recognising they’re male, and not being forced to lie about it.

It does sound to me like you think there are certain circumstances where women being subjected to compelled speech is warranted.

I don’t.

I've never been told to fuck off before! That's a first for me grin

You still haven't been told to fuck off.

You were told to feck off. different word, different vibe. Words matter.

Gawd.

This is all a very interesting conversation for me anyway!

Talking to. No. It means I don't think it's right to alter the existing bullying policy. No more, no less.

And I've never been told to feck off either! It's not a term I've heard IRL. Surely it is for fuck? And round here fuck off is heard very often so I mean it's no big deal either way!

My question to those who have a different view (aside from the PP who agreed to disagree) is-

What do you plan to do about it?

Petition?
Write to MPs?
ministry of justice?
The individual who said this?
Etc etc.

I think this is where it becomes confusing with transgender surely either we accept that they are male or female depending on circumstances. We can’t keep swapping depending on circumstances.

Males are male. Full stop. No two ways about it.

99.999 % of the world including in UK also uses woman/ man to refer to sex. And boy/ girl.

Individuals can decide for themselves how they interact with other individuals. I mean in the end it's trivial.

Losing our words is fundamental. Female is going now as well. That leaves NONE.

note the new definitions only apply in certain circs. Anything to do with female (not male) reproductive system. Women's rights but only in certain countries.

Even the most evangelist new definition people and orgs will merrily use women girls to mean sex on other major topics. Without allowing themselves even a moment to notice their huge glaring total massive fucking hypocrisy. Cowardly bastards every one of them.
Because they know that talking about eg women under Taliban using people with vaginas etc.
Would be condemned rightly as outrageous .

Maybe the female prisoners can say "sheeeeee" with an eye-roll and air-quotes or a little fake cough. If questioned the females could say they have a tic, brought on by being triggered into a MH crisis due to the stress of sharing a prison sentence with a penis-haver. You can't give someone a prison sentence for being triggered, can you?

I think the Mean Girls- the Prison Years was Hollyoaks.