Research studies on female prisoners in Scotland and transgender prisoners

[dontknowwhattpputhere]

I saw a reference to this study and I thought it might be of interest to the posters here:

academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjc/azab091/6370239

The above paper contains interviews with women in Scottish prisons who have been imprisoned with transgender prisoners.

These papers may also be of interest (interviews with transgender prisoners) :

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1477370820984488

discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/i-want-the-male-and-the-female-wings-i-dont-want-a-special-trans-

N.B The term "cis" is used extensively!

Hmm for some reason only one of my links seems to be showing in the app. All 3 are showing on the website for me.

That is super interesting and i think a nice attempt to do some decent research in this space. The findings are mixed and nuanced as you would expect them to be, and served as a really good reminder that it is all to easy to assume vulnerability, that the individuals concerned do not feel.

Two major, and partially acknowledged flaws are that this has been conducted by a member of prison staff, which is likely to have skewed the results (the scottish prison service is not a neutral party here). Also the prison staff chose who got to participate and there is no detail on how this was done. Both these factors will undoubtedly have skewed the results.

The paper also offers no solutions. If there is widespread gaming of the system, as the women seem to think, how is that managed?

I can see three links, OP.

Is this study not meant to be propaganda? The respondents are not randomly chosen, but chosen by prison staff.

The links are all showing in your post. I skim read the first link and its biased, both in language and methodology.

''She’s still a guy. I don’t know if I’m…am I allowed to say all that, right? Still a guy or whatever and I think a lot the girls has…well, a few of the girls within the hall had been subject to abuse as a child so they still saw this guy figure.''

Women in prison in Scotland are living in a system that penalises them for objecting to being forced to share a shower or cell with a biological male.
The risk of being penalised for wrong speech seems to have influenced who volunteers to speak on this subject and what they say.

Women in prison in Scotland are living in a system that penalises them for objecting to being forced to share a shower or cell with a biological male.

Like a dystopian feminist novel.

I read the paper which interviewed trans inmates and a few things popped out to me. First, the trans prisoners are not at all happy about the idea of being put into a special trans only wing, even though this would address concerns about trans peoples safety. They really, really want to be put into the female estate. Second, the authors note the trans prisoners feel entitled to decide where they should be placed in prison, disregarding the risk assessment. Third, interestingly enough, the trans prisoners report they don’t want to be in a trans only wing because they don’t like being around other trans people. One prisoner says something like “ I was put in with another trans woman and couldn’t stand her because she was the type to shove it in your face.” Fourth, the prisoners complain that if they stay on a trans only wing they won’t be able to learn how to live and act as women (but I thought they WERE women?) They are very keen to be around women so they can copy them.

I didn't read the trans interviews, i am only interested in the views of natal female prisoners, as those are the voices we seldom hear. The study is flawed, but it is great to hear directly from some of these women.

Interesting in that first one how when it comes to the crunch, some of the respondents still openly say these people are men.

The general feeling I got from that study was "Warm fuzzy" followed by "Definitely not warm or fuzzy" followed by "Yikes" with a conclusion going, "But it's not ALL bad like everyone says! Positive narratives! Yay!"

'Ultimately, the participants in this study feel simultaneously intrigued by, warm towards, supportive of, vulnerable around, threatened by and intimidated by living with transgender people in custody'. Wonder how much weight those last three descriptors carry compared the first three (not that 'intrigued' is particularly positive).

I should also say that the insistence on using language like 'cis' and 'assigned at birth' set my teeth on edge...

Thanks, glad the links are showing. I agree that the participants may not have felt at liberty to express their opinions fully. Even so, there are some quotes suggesting that the participants believe that at least some trans offenders are gaming the system. One quote I thought was interesting: "obviously they wouldn't be allowed over here if their offence was that bad". But we know that 12 trans offenders convicted of violent or sexual offences were moved into Scottish female prisons over the last 18 months, as reported in November 2021. The average daily female prison population in Scotland is around 400 (around 7000 for the male population).

It’s really ironic that the paper interviewing the female prisoners is entitled “she is just like a lassie”, which sounds really upbeat and positive — aww the women prisoners treat the trans women as one of their own. Until you read the paper and you realise that the “lassie” in question promptly went back to being a man as soon as he left prison, leaning the women hurt and confused. They feel like he tricked them - they protected him and treated him like a woman but now feel it was all a ploy to get into the female estate.

Thank you, these are interesting. I must admit the child in me sniggered at the surname 'Maycock' though, in context.

@WeeBisom

It’s really ironic that the paper interviewing the female prisoners is entitled “she is just like a lassie”, which sounds really upbeat and positive — aww the women prisoners treat the trans women as one of their own. Until you read the paper and you realise that the “lassie” in question promptly went back to being a man as soon as he left prison, leaning the women hurt and confused. They feel like he tricked them - they protected him and treated him like a woman but now feel it was all a ploy to get into the female estate.

You could call that ironic or you could call it deliberately misleading / manipulative.

Men making demands, declaring loudly who they are and who they will be around. Classic male behaviour. Meanwhile women, know your place and budge up

The diversity of views on living with transgender people ex- pressed by the cis-women in this study complicates the idea that all cis-women in custody feel threatened or vulnerable as a consequence of living with transgender people, as a greater diver- sity of responses and feelings have been analysed in this article.

I find this peculiar. Who said ALL women felt this way? I feel this research team began this with the wrong premise to start with. Like they had something to prove.

It certainly comes across as them having an agenda to prove.

The point is… how many women being not comfortable will be the point when they will reinstate single sex spaces for women in prison?

This contributes to the ‘n+1’ women considered acceptable collateral damage.

I wonder if either of the groups interviewed would be more reluctant to express their views openly to a privileged white man in authority than the other group? Is either group more likely to have been a victim of male violence?

There’s a definite hint of bias in the titles and throughout the papers that you might expect from a researcher who appears to have published several papers on masculinity in prison service but nothing on women. And no desire to delve deeper in to the evidence that some men only transition after their sentence and transition back as soon as they leave. Not to mention classing some views of the women prisoners as “extremely prejudiced” if they question the authenticity of any trans women.

Another paper by the same author, with a very feminist title

link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-89396-9_11

Another point: it seems one of the transgender participants was interested in seeing the results so the transgender participants were given the opportunity to look at the paper and provide feedback prior to publication. As far as I can see, it's not stated if the female prisoners were provided this opportunity.

Whilst it’s a interesting read it’s clearly very prejudiced.

This section alone made my blood boil.

**Around half of the participants in this study, held views that were more closely aligned to the prejudiced views towards transgender people outlined in the British Social Attitudes Survey. Within the prison context this took a particular manifestation, insofar as some participants did not consider the transgender people they lived with as female, and in some instances suggested that they should be located in halls within prisons of their birth sex (in this instance located in male halls). These views are reflective of wider prejudices within society, despite the majority of people and cis-women, in particular, supporting transgender rights (Curtice 2019). For example, Ellie was quite clear that if you were born a man, irrespective of any subsequent transition you should be in a male prison:

I think if I’m being honest with myself if you’re...they should be in a man’s jail. I think if you’re born a man you should be in a man’s jail.^

Yeah, the author is clearly so embedded in the TWAW camp any dissent is interpreted as prejudiced.

Sorry, I will repost this.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trans-prisoners-switch-gender-again-once-freed-from-womens-units-qjjsd0nlx

I found it archived. I cannot even mention which service to look at it seems.

Sorry no share token

Just came to see if this has been posted yet, sharetoken:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/03d57d22-6b4c-11ec-bb37-1b2eed73c283?shareToken=ee4b2e33c04b322bcacdfc283f8d5c19

Fucking hell that is bias on steroids GinUnicorn.

I've always noticed that the reported voices from prisons usually report being happy to have males who have transitioned in the women's estate if they haven't committed obviously sexual or violent offences and if their behaviour is ok. Essentially a conditional acceptance. That's completely understandable and very reasonable but simultaneously almost impossible to implement in law.

My fury at this situation remains unchanged despite well being able to believe that there are individual males who have transitioned who would not disrupt a women's prison.