Come on Ireland! Leo Varadkar says violent males should NOT be in prison with women

[ArabellaScott]

https://twitter.com/griptmedia/status/1638242240609804288

'"Is Barbie Kardashian a woman?": Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says that biological males should not be put in women's prisons.'

Maybe now Leo will take over from Tubridy too seeing as he has found his voice.

Irish women have been making submissions to Irish TDs for six fucking years about the harm of gender ideology. They knew. They just didn't care.

There's about 500 women in prison in Ireland.

Currently there's three TW amongst those - all have violent convictions against women and/or girls. All in Limerick apparently.

Limerick prison houses 46 inmates currently with a capacity for 28.
So how segregated from BK and the other two can women inmates be with such overcrowding? They aren't.

Leo can't even claim like Sturgeon did that BK would be held safely away from other inmates because that would be even more of a bald faced lie than he can usually manage.

I saw this on twitter earlier, it's interesting:

Tracy Dempsey #WomenLifeFreedom #KPSS on Twitter: "I was on an Irish Penal Reform Trust @IPRT webinar last year when they launched their report on Irish prisons. I raised BK + the other 2 men in Limerick women’s prison, the solitary confinement issue, the Mandela Rules. I was told “That’s outside the scope of our report.” #KPSS" / Twitter

Horrific. Do you have any idea who those other two males are in the women's prison?

I read somewhere that one reportedly sexually assaulted women and at least one girl. The other also is a sex offender supposedly but I don't know any more than that.
But I've no facts to back those statements up.

A report in 2021:

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/transgender-inmates-are-housed-inwomens-wing-of-prison-40430731.html

The page is available on archive sites.

Newstalk Breakfast this morning:

https://www.newstalk.com/news/womens-safety-is-paramount-violent-biological-males-should-not-go-to-womens-prison-1448784

Newstalk report on Justice Minister Simon Harris' statement:

https://www.newstalk.com/news/new-transgender-prisoner-policy-to-be-completed-within-weeks-harris-1448879

I suspect this is all accurate.

Still. At least it’s progress even if not driven by his own integrity.

The segment on air:

https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/highlights-from-newstalk-breakfast/all-things-considered-dealing-with-trans-offenders

It's a start. After so bloody long, it's a start.

Norma Foley has agreed with Leo's comments.

Norma is such an eejit to stick her head above the parapet given she's the Minister for Education, and responsible for what our kids are hearing in schools with regard to Gender Identity.

All we need now is the Minister for Sport to do his own own goal eh?

I tried to share, again, the link to Paddy O'Gorman's interview with a woman lately discharged from Limerick prison describing the impact of the transgender prisoners and it isn't being accepted, but google his name and 'Paddy's podcasts' - it's in season 2 and is called 'Limerick prison'. Well worth listening to, and quite short.

Interesting. Maybe you have a bit of a terfy Minister for Ed?

It might be a good time to forge some golden bridges, if so. If you're in Ireland, letters to your representatives on the issue, in support of women and women's rights, and thanking Varadkar and Norma Foley, might be a good idea.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/members/member/Norma-Foley.D.2020-02-08/

I'm never sure if letters in support from Scotland would be helpful or a hindrance. Happy to send if that might be useful, if anyone has any thoughts on the matter?

@ArabellaScott I'd love it if any eloquent posters here could give us Irish women some template text to start us off.

I won't claim to be eloquent, but even just a short note - all they need is to get the gist that you support them in supporting women's rights - something like:

'Thank you for your recent comments on the subject of males in women's prisons. It's good to see politicians standing up for the protection of women, who should never be incarcerated with males. Women prisoners are often vulnerable and deserve our support and compassion. Their loss of freedom is punishment enough; incarcerating women with males is contrary to the Geneva Convention and puts them at risk of both physical and mental trauma.

I'm sure you'll agree that women's rights are human rights, and that women deserve to be protected from the threat of male violence. '

Maybe someone else could improve on that - I have to run for the school pick up!

How reassuring that almost immediately Harris changes the topic under discussion from ‘women should be safe and protected in prison’ to ‘everyone should be safe and protected in prison’. Takes the sting out of the topic and reduces it to a less urgent-seeming issue.

This is what happens when policies that negatively affect women are treated as unisex issues, women’s specific needs and problems get lost.

Yes, predictable. But the genie is out of the bottle now.

I really hope you’re right but every time the topic of Barbie Kardashian, or men in women’s spaces, has managed to get into the news cycle it gets smothered by newspaper articles with confusing pronoun-use and (when it came to reporting on BK) entire articles written about the issue not mentioning the violent offenders’ biological sex.

And then the ‘cool girl’ opinion pieces start up in the Irish Times, slagging off women who raise the safeguarding issues as being narrow-minded, transphobic, right wing, or ‘West Brits’. These tactics have been successful thus far at killing off attempts at genuine public debate - also, see what happened to Joe after Liveline tried to host discussion on the topic last year.

Once you see the tactics you can address them. Hold fast, focus on the issue in hand. Barbie Kardashian is a violent male who fantasises about killing women. He is also a transwoman. He is the walking embodiment of the problems with self ID women have been trying to raise for years.

The video with expressions and eye rolling - classic creeping jesus

Paddy O'Gorman has done quite a bit on it. He chanced onto the story when he was interviewing people outside Limerick prison and encountered a woman who had been on the women's wing when 2 transwomen were there. He couldn't believe it and has had a few episodes of his podcast interviewing former women prisoners who experienced it or their relatives.