Transwomen in women's prisons - what's the problem?

[HeadAboveHeadBelow]

This is one of the many fraught conversations I've had with a friend recently. She acknowledges incidents happen where a TW harms a female inmate, and agrees that is terribly wrong. However, where I say the problem is that the TW s claimed gender identity is prioritised over their sex, she says the prison system should be better at screening prisoners as often these incidents involve a TW who has previously been a risk to women, so, why were they housed with women?
She does have a point, but I think that gender identity based policies makes it hard to put this kind of screening in place... I'm finding it hard to argue it though, so maybe I'm just wrong. Thoughts?

Why can't they be assessed as men?
Presumably because if they are men, they shouldn't be in a women's prison anyway! And that's when the whole thing falls apart - you can't take gender identity AND sex equally into consideration. One has to take precedence.

I mean she’s got a point. But better screening (or risk assessment) would presumably be a system where no male with a conviction for violence or sexual offences was housed with women. That would still be considered transphobic by the ideologues. Most non violent crimes can be dealt with in the community so there’s no real need to house men with women.

Substitute the word 'men' back into the sentence removing the word 'transwomen' and ask yourself why they segregate men and women in jail's in the first place.

It isn't because women need pink outfits that's for sure.

I think you’re quoting me. I do actually think there’s a case for a TW specific assessment tool. TW prisoners are clearly higher risk to women than most male prisoners (sex offender stats in UK and USA) and their risk assessment should be adjusted so they’re considered higher risk than the male baseline. They should be risk assessed as transwomen, certainly not as women.

but I was mostly being ironic suggesting it. Risk assessing them as men would be fine!

This.

Because make no mistake, it's fuck all about the actual space. It's all about the women in that space. The women, and in this case, teenagers and babies.

The actual space is just four walls, a ceiling and the floor. It's irrelevant. The only thing that makes it validating is the women inside it.

It's serving up a conveyor belt of women to satisfy the desires of men.

Ask your friend, should a transman be housed in the men's prison.

If not, why not? Could it be to do with the fact he has a vagina, and is smaller than his fellow inmates, who are sex-starved and already offenders?

If yes, how should his safety be guaranteed to ensure his fellow inmates don't rape him?

Now flip it around.

As has happened recently with a pedophile. No GRC. Nothing. Nada. Only ‘self I’d’ and off their pop to a woman’s jail.

Female prisoners are not support humans for men. If your TW who have ‘never been a danger to female inmates’ feel like they’d be unsafe in the male prison estate, then the alternative is to build specific provision for trans prisoners. There are myriad vulnerable male prisoners who are not incarcerated due to violence against women ‘ children, and many will be victims of violence at the hands of other male prisoners. Should we ship them all into the female estate? If not, why?

There are plenty of women in jail who have never raised a hand or harmed a fly. Should we send them to kindergarten then?

Keep it simple. They're men. They don't belong in women's prisons.

If they can't be kept safe in men's prisons, that's an issue for the prison system to deal with.

It's not a problem that should be passed on to women prisoners.

If your friend is still listening, show her the talk by Angela at the Let Women Speak rally in Brighton. Angela was in a women's prison where males were also being housed.

Perfect!

It is not women's problem to solve male violence against men.

Yes she completely realises this, she just thinks, as many do, that some people are trans, they are only comfortable when identifying out of their sex, and it is mean to deny them this. If they were individually a danger to women then that's different but mostly they aren't ( is what she would say). I don't think she believes it matters if they gave a penis or not.

Yes I think this is crucial, my friend is saying there is a fault with the prison system, and there should be a different risk assessment that prevents males that are a danger to women being housed in the female estate , even if TW. I believe this would not be possible if policies were gender identity based, as it clearly overrides gender identity. Unless there were one universal risk assessment.

Ignorance is the problem

There are strict processes in place for trans women in prisons, they're often segregated for their own protection over anything else.

Plus many also gloss over the severe sexual abuse women inflict on other women in prisons, Google decrotching if you'd like to have an insight into female on female sexual violence in prisons, which is incredibly common.

Does your friend believe in mixed sex everything else? Communal changing rooms, toilets, hospital wards? Or does she think there are some circumstances in which women deserve some privacy and dignity and to feel safe away from men?

still deserve to be treated with respect

Can females be treated with equal respect please? I'm pretty sure they deserve it too, despite being born by an accident of biology into the 'walking resource for male humans' category.

Does respecting male people who identify themselves as TW require providing them with non consenting females?

They can respectfully be protected and all their needs met within a male vulnerable prisoners unit, or within a designated TW unit. Access to females has nothing to do with 'respect'. It has to do with rampant misogyny and regarding females as less human than males.

@astoundedgoat

There are transwomen who would clearly be in significant danger in a male prison, have never harmed a fly and present absolutely no danger to female inmates. Suspect these are a tiny minority, but still deserve to be treated with respect.

The vast majority of natal men aren't rapists. Yet don't allow any men in female single sex spaces (for the sake or argument as some people want to change this)Not because all men are rapists. But because some are, and we can't tell which so we don't allow any in, in order to mitigate the risk to women.

There are especially vulnerable men due to physical disabilities, learning difficulties etc who have 'never harmed a fly' (e.g. a non violent crime) who are at much greater risk than other males in a male prison.

But they are housed in that prison because they are male.

And they are not moved to a female prison, even though they would arguably be safer there, because as males they still present a potential sex specific risk to female prisoners.

Why should a trans woman (who could be physically very fit, strong and as able to defend themselves as another man) be offered the protection of being housed with women, when far more vulnerable men aren't?

That's a genuine question.

The answer is that we don't segregate prisons based on case by base vulnerability, we segregate them based on sex specific vulnerability that presents sex specific risks and sex specific outcomes.

If males without GRCs can say the words and be handed the option of access to females and female spaces, then any male in the male estate has a legal case to demand equal access. The comparator of a male without a GRC is any other male. If a non TQ+ male wished to, I suspect it would be difficult for a court to say that they were not being discriminated against in the justice system's refusal to place them according to their preference with the company of their choice.

What’s a Hyper feminine gay transwoman?
Is that a biological man? No matter how feminine they present they will have been through Male puberty and be bigger and stronger than most women. Plus they have a penis and can rape

There are transwomen who would clearly be in significant danger in a male prison, have never harmed a fly and present absolutely no danger to female inmates. Suspect these are a tiny minority, but still deserve to be treated with respect.

It would be better to reform the prison service so that people who have “never harmed a fly and present no danger to others” are dealt with outside of it. I’m assuming you mean things like non payment of tv licenses etc.

+1

The obvious solution is to have a trans woman wing somewhere where they can all be put together protecting them from the male estate and not risking females. It’s not validation enough though is it?

I’m sure I’ll be deleted but looking at the statistics of trans prisoners - they do not just have the same patterns of offending as men.

They have a far higher rate of sexual offences than men.

My understanding is in the last 3 years trans people are more likely to murderers than murdered.

Either trans people in the UK are the most dangerous demographic or predatory men are using trans as a cover.

We were told the latter would never happen so what is the truth?

I'm of the understanding that if a trans prisoner has a GRA they are no longer counted as a trans inmate but rather as a female inmate. Trans imates only refers to self-ID.