Transgender inmates in women’s prisons to face new government restrictions

[SpottyBumPony]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/trans-prisoners-women-jails-government-b2200573.html

Lizzie Dearden Home Affairs Editor 13 hours ago

Transgender prisoners “with male genitalia” should no longer be held in women’s prisons, the justice secretary has announced.

In a parliamentary statement, Brandon Lewis said he would bring forward a new policy on the issue later this year.

“Under the reforms, transgender prisoners with male genitalia should no longer be held in the general women’s estate,” he added.

“This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

“This will also apply to transgender women who have been convicted of a sex offence.”

Official figures show that the vast majority of trans inmates in England and Wales are held in male prisons, with most of the 40 in women’s jails identifying as male.

A parliamentary committee previously found there was a risk of violence, sexual assault, self-harming and suicide “where trans prisoners are not located appropriate to their acquired/affirmed gender”.

Several trans women have killed themselves in male prisons in the past decade.

Last week, Mr Lewis told the Conservative Party conference that it was “not right that transgender prisoners, when convicted of serious sexual offences or those who have not had reassignment surgery, are housed in the general women’s prison estate”, vowing: “This will end.”

The new justice secretary said there had been sex attacks and inappropriate relationships involving transgender inmates in recent years.

He suggested that the use of “specialist cells” could be increased to “further protect women in prison”.

The statement came days after official figures showed that police-recorded hate crimes targeting transgender people had rocketed by 56 per cent in a year.

Galop, an LGBT+ anti-abuse charity, said transphobic narratives in the media and by senior politicians have been allowed to grow without challenge and were translating into “violence against our community”.

Suella Braverman, the new home secretary, has focused on trans issues in recent weeks, wading into a Twitter row over the gender identity of a child sex abuser and hitting out at “biologically male police officers strip-searching female suspects”.

The former attorney general has been strident in her views at a series of events and interviews, replying when asked what a woman is that “a woman has two X chromosomes, a woman gives birth, a woman does not have a penis”.

The most recent prison service figures show that as of April 2021, there were 197 transgender prisoners in England and Wales.

Three-quarters of trans inmates identified as female, and 80 per cent reported their legal gender as male.

The vast majority of trans women were still being held in male prisons, an official report for 2020-21 said, with only 40 transgender prisoners in women’s jails. Of that group, fewer than five people reported their legal gender as male.

The figures include people who were “presenting in a gender different to their sex assigned at birth”, and exclude people who have already transitioned and have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

High Court judges found that the current policy was lawful in 2021, after a female prisoner who said she had been sexually assaulted by a trans inmate convicted for serious sexual offences launched a challenge.

The Ministry of Justice argued that its policy pursued the legitimate aim of “facilitating the rights of transgender people to live in and as their acquired gender”, and protected trans women’s mental and physical health.

From 2011, guidance for prisons in England and Wales stated that prisoners should normally be located in the prison estate of their gender as recognised by UK law, and that a Gender Recognition Certificate would normally be necessary before a person could be moved.

After a 2016 policy review, new guidelines stated that “all transgender prisoners (irrespective of prison location) must be allowed to express the gender with which they identify”.

Inmates were allowed to express their view on where they should be held, but decisions to locate them in a jail that did not accord with their legal gender was left to a Transgender Case Board.

The current guidance states that decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and informed by evidence and intelligence to “balance risk and promote the safety of all”.

“The management of individuals who are transgender must seek to protect both the welfare and rights of the individual and the welfare and rights of others around them, including staff,” it adds.

“Where a transgender woman with a GRC is placed in the women’s estate, all known or likely risks she may pose to other women in the estate should be managed, with use of separate accommodation where appropriate.”

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@Chattycathydoll it says in the next line that those numbers exclude grc
The vast majority of trans women were still being held in male prisons, an official report for 2020-21 said, with only 40 transgender prisoners in women’s jails. Of that group, fewer than five people reported their legal gender as male.
I wonder if the writer gave up on understanding what was going on!
so 4 reported legal gender as male- do you think that means those 4 are strictly male people? If it were that straightforward as if no grc then legal gender matches sex wouldn’t there be better data on all this?? And it must mean 36 transmen without grc 🤷‍♀️

the next line: The figures include people who were “presenting in a gender different to their sex assigned at birth”, and exclude people who have already transitioned and have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

Anyway I agree with a pp that there is a clear case for a transgender prison in the mens estate to keep them safe. Along with facilities for other vulnerable men perhaps. But we all know the uk fiscal situation is dire and public spending will be hard to come by.

A huge number of the men in men's prisons will have additional vulnerabilities. We know that those with learning difficulties, low levels of literacy and education, experience of the care system, insecure accomodation and homelessness, substance addicted, mental illness etc etc are over represented in the prison population.

The answer is to argue for prison standards to be raised for all prisoners. For everyone to be deemed worthy of being kept safe, feeling acknowledged and listened to, and to access the health care, mental health support, education support and therapy that they need to use the time wisely and to give them the greatest chance of leaving prison equipped and supported to go forwards positively without reoffending.

The idea that some self identified and loud shouting men get to demand bespoke, tailored, resource intensive treatment at the expense of all other prisoners, either of their own sex or the opposite is just not ok.

I think though there are already quite a lot of prisoners who are in special facilities in order to keep them safe. Nonces, informers, people who have offended gangs in some way, people who have been in law enforcement. It's not that they all did something especially bad to need extra protection either.

The difficulty is that these kind of situations suck, lots of isolation and many restrictions, fewer facilities.

But we accept that this is how it is for these other people, so why not MtF trans people?

There are strong aggressive women in prison currently a few trans are not going to make a difference, changing the rules gets my vote, probably the only good thing the present government has done.

But we accept that this is how it is for these other people, so why not MtF trans people?
Fair question. Why does this group attract so much special treatment?

@MangyInseam isolation and high security wings is not the ideal special facilities to protect vulnerable people. I think giving trans people a wing where they can socialise and be in a normal prison environment but one just with other male trans people sounds fair. There are enough of them, why not?

Call me cynical, but I suspect there would be radically less if the option to be housed with natal women were removed...
Being with other trans women is not the end game here.

I'm also not convinced there would be enough if there were no advantages to it. If there were some numbers, sure, you could house them together, but it would almost certainly mean many would be far from their home region.

It's not ideal for anyone to be isolated, and I don't think that should be dismissed even for unsavoury people. But it's probably always going to be the reality.

I was wondering why the section about her was unsettling me. Men are never strident are they.

I'm half and half. I'll be glad once its officially written down but I'm also aware that its good this is out in the open to more mainstream readers/viewers. The ones who don't know rapists are in womens prisons.

Those male prisoners already in the trans wing, are allowed to mix during the day with the women to benefit from interaction with them, or for their validation more like.

I think this and the changes in the guidance for schools, are very very small, but positive steps. The first step is the government admitting that there is a problem. Also with Primark and other retailers talking about changing rooms, the powers that be are starting to realize that women are not hateful bigots, we do have very reasonable points.
I think it will take years to get back to where we were with single sex spaces, but at least the government and retailers can't deny that there is an issue.

Yes, seems like a lot of waffle to say that essentially everything will stay exactly as it is.

I should add, that although I think it's a very small step in the right direction, this doesn't mean that we should stop campaigning and holding the government and retailers (and everyone else) to account.

Why is there no mention of the proposed Minister's veto?

'They will introduce greater oversight for ministers on where transgender prisoners serve their sentences, making it harder for biologically male inmates to be housed in female jails. It is understood that ministers will be given the power to remove transgender prisoners from jails. Transfers are currently decided by a transgender case board.' From the Times Oct 1st

"This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis."

I suspect that is to forestall any appeals via the courts following the initial judicial review AB 2009 and the subsequent one re FDJ.

It doesn't necessarily mean that a future exemption will ever be granted - and we won't know that unless or until it is - but it removes an acknowledged avenue of appeal.

It's a start.

”There are strong aggressive women in prison”

Whilst I don’t doubt that’s true, I’d lay money on the bulk of female prisoners being at the more vulnerable end of the spectrum. In many cases, they will have suffered abuse at the hands of men in their lives, and a fair proportion will have mental health challenges.

Always a loophole left for men to exploit. Can't risk hurting men.
Not once can they stand up for women and say NO to the men.

"This will not be a blanket rule"

Then it is meaningless and useless to protect women from fear, indignity, harassment and assault.

No males in female prisons. The end.

TQ+ males have committed suicide in male prisons. This is a problem that needs addressing. It can be addressed in a number of ways, none of which involve providing access to non consenting, captured females .

Right to physical access to and the physical presence of female humans as service animals is not a male human right. It's just insanity. Sort out male problems in the male estate and stop using females as bloody male owned resources.

That is not good enough.

No piece of paper, mutilations or drug misuse should remove the right of biological women to be housed within the prison estate away from all biological male inmates.

There may be a case for a trans wing in male prisons, similar to the sex offenders wing (can't remember the correct name for it offhand), but there can never be a good reason for housing a biological male in the female estate.

Men have committed suicide in prison who do not believe in the cult of gender ideology.
Just because someone is part of the cult, does not mean that was the reason they committed suicide.

It is no womans job to bear any responsibility for a male they don't even know committing suicide, no matter how he identifies.

No piece of paper, mutilations or drug misuse should remove the right of biological women to be housed within the prison estate away from all biological male inmates.

That ^^

And no emotions or desires of a male person should remove the right of biological women either.

Women are not a fucking therapy resource for the real humans. This is batshit on crack. It's just flat out male supremacism.

And if “specialist cells” can be provided in the womens estate to protect penis intact ‘transwomen’ prisoners, why can’t specialist cells be provided for penis intact ‘transwomen’ prisoners where they belong, in the mens estate.

They can. They can be entirely and properly protected as vulnerable male prisoners.

The distress and fuss is about the lack of provision of female humans as resources for use. That's it. That's all. And the answer to that is: access to females is not a human right for males.

“This will not be a blanket rule; exemptions to these new rules will be considered on a case-by-case basis."

It's already a case by case basis, so what's different?

Well, it depends where you are in the UK, Marge. Scotland's different from E&W, and as self ID is about to be brought in here it will shortly change again. Info here on the process in E&W - I'm not sure how this works in NI:

'A male who has a GRC stating that he is legally a woman is initially placed in a women’s prison. Conviction, offending history and anatomy are not taken into consideration. If he poses a risk to or is at risk from the female prisoners and the risk is too high to manage in a women’s prison, his case is referred to a Transgender Complex Case Board.'
...
'The OASys Sexual Reoffending Predictor Score, OSP for short, is used for adult men who have been convicted of sexual or sexually motivated offences. It is not for use with female sexual offenders. Neither is it used for male sexual offenders with a GRC, because these prisoners are assessed as women. There is no alternative risk assessment tool for use with women who have been convicted of sexual offences.'

'A male who identifies as ‘transgender’ but who does not have a GRC is initially allocated to a men’s prison. If he wishes to stay there he remains there and decisions will be made about how to manage him in the male estate.

He is entitled to apply to be transferred to a women’s prison. He must provide evidence of ‘living as a woman’. His offending history, past behaviour and anatomy are also considered. The application goes before a Transgender Case Board where a decision will be made. Male prisoners without a GRC are risk assessed in the same way as all male prisoners.'

kpssinfo.org/are-male-prisoners-really-in-womens-prisons/