Just 5 trans women in women’s jails - Inside Time article

[IwantToRetire]

The latest figures, from the Offender Equalities Annual Report, related to March 2023. In March 2022 there were 162 trans women in male jails and six in female jails. Trans women who have had their new gender legally recognised with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) are not included in the figures. There were 13 prisoners with GRCs, but the report did not specify whether they were trans women or trans men.

https://insidetime.org/newsround/just-5-trans-women-in-womens-jails/

Well the solution IS NOT to put women at harm.

Which is what you are suggesting.

Please highlight where I have suggested that. I'll wait.

Oh you don't think women are put at harm because the hypothetical tw doesn't have a penis and shares hair accessories!

I forgot !

How lovely for these vulnerable woman that he passed your test and was put in the women's estate because you think he's no safety risk. Never mind the psychological harm that he might cause to women by being there , eh? So long as the poor man is kept safe.

You’re telling me that I have to be careful with my language about how I talk about an individual who we only know exists because you say so and if I’m not careful I could be reported for a potential hate crime under the harassment act if you weren’t being so nice today, and I am “daft” to use the word coercion?

I don’t care what the legal definition of coercion is. You’re trying to coerce me into using wrong sex pronouns with the threat of a “report”.

Well, no. I won’t be coerced. I won’t change my language because of your threats.

Transwomen are men, though. That is the definition of a transwoman. A man who wants to be a woman, believes he is a woman, tries to look like a woman. How else could anyone describe him?

Claims to be Gender Critical yet thinks “misgendering” is bigoted. Hmm.

I agree that separate wings in the male estate is what I would choose too.

I would point out though that Stephen Wood/Karen White was on remand in England, not Scotland. And definitely had a penis. Perhaps they're being excluded because they were on remand.

I don't exclude cases that were 'a long time ago' because I'm old and therefore to me this century is not very long. The policy only changed a year ago and in my view it's important to keep clearly in mind how things came to happen.

They should never have been remanded into a female prison. I'm shocked they were remanded into a female prison in England!

'Just 5 males'.

Can we just reflect on the invisible women in this very simple statement. How many women are being impacted by just 5 males?

Can we have a number on that?

How many women have to share mixed sex shower facilities? How many women have to share mixed sex sleeping arrangement? Are these women feeling that their dignity is being respected?

The focus, even in that simple comment, isn't on the women affected. They are invisible and secondary to the men. Thats not balancing needs if we are silent about the dignity of women as the starting point in conversations.

Why can't we have headlines like '400 women share communal showers with males in prison' for example? I am fairly sure if that were the headline for the BBC it would get complaint and be accused of bias.

This thread has just really focused my mind on this point.

Maybe we can have a concerted effort when we talk about trans prisoners to stress the women first. Lets centre them.

Can we start to rewrite News Headlines which centre women when we have stories about the conflict between trans issues and women rather than accept the bollocks of stuff like 'anti-trans JK Rowling'.

If we start thinking like this and start reframing in our own heads and say it out loud as a matter of routine, maybe others will start to see the invisible women.

Can we ask the question routinely: where are the invisible women?

To me, because I'm gender critical, genital surgery status is irrelevant, plus I would like to reach a point where nobody feels the need for self harm on that scale. But I have always noted that female prisoners where they speak up, tend to regard surgery status as important, and I can imagine it makes a difference in communal living.

Yy @RedToothBrush. It gets really simple if you focus on the women.

Not if you see them passing scrunchies and lippy and think everything’s tickety boo.

I don't understand your perspective, RMN.

What on earth do trans-identifying male prisoners have to do with female prisons? It's nothing to do with female prisons, their inmates and their staff. No male - no matter how he wishes to be perceived or what body modification he's been through - should ever be in women's single sex spaces. Not even the nice They/Thems with hair bobbles.

Ever. No exceptions

The problem of how to safely house transwomen prisoners is an issue for the men's prisons to solve.

They can try trans wings, splitting VP units up into sex offenders and not sex offenders, increase staffing ratios, whatever strikes them as a possibility. I don't see why feminists need to argue about this, it's a Men problem for them to fix.

(obviously I do see why this is a problem for feminists, because males are being held in the female estate, but this should never have been the case)

I swear this issue often fels like shouting at the Cat's Protection League for not considering small dogs.

You know, the ones about the size of a cat, and who don't bark very much. You bigots.

I'm only a pen-pusher apparently (I'll let my governor know, so I don't have to do all the awkward face to face landing stuff any more), but it was FEMALE STAFF, who pushed pens eloquently and decisively, to make the change to the PSI that RMN referred to earlier.

There is a TW in my establishment. They are not violent or a sex offender. They have had bottom surgery. They do not pass, FWIW. In theory, they would meet RMN's criteria for going to a female prison. They are not on the VP wing, through their own choice (they were offered the opportunity). The other prisoners actually look out for them and leave them be. We somehow managed to develop a supportive community in a male prison, although we are low on hair accessories.

It's also important that Lauren Jeska committed their crime because of their trans status.
So being in the female estate must be very affirming for Lauren.

@RMNofTikTok I really appreciate hearing your perspective. It seems clearer to me now why you keep asking about how to keep transwomen safe in men's prisons. My interest is to ask why are there men in women's prisons and how did we get here? What problems does it cause women and what might be done about that?

And I think the centring of men on a board for discussion from a feminist perspective explains the different twists and turns of the thread. Of course that depends on the feminism as these days there are types that centre women and girls and types that seem to be more about equality in general (personally I wouldn't call those feminist.)

On the subject of pronouns I also find what you say interesting as I hadn't really thought about the difference between talking about groups as a whole or an individual. I suppose I would want to weigh up on a case by case basis if my using sex-based pronouns was unnecessarily harmful to a person and then I would choose to use sex neutral pronouns. In that weighing up I also include my own sense of wellbeing and autonomy to speak my truth. And also the impact on others and the social structure in general if language erasure or forced language is allowed to flourish through my complicity. That's why I might still use "he" for an individual transwoman. Would you think of that as transphobic or vexatious?

@CuriousAlien it's definitely an interesting conversation! I think I alluded to why transwomen may become centred - they are generally socialised as males so have male privileged.

I don't see anything wrong in acknowledging that transwomen are male. I also would call a man in a dress that has made no attempt to transition a man. However I personally feel, and I don't expect anybody to agree, that repeatedly calling a transwoman who has made a genuine effort to present as a woman a man hateful. Like I said before, you can respect people's pronouns without calling them a woman, I feel this is common courtesy, and we should not be attacking individual people.

I've chosen to centre transwomen as I believe the risks to women are pretty obvious, and people rarely consider the other side of the coin. In order to create meaningful debate and discussion sometimes it's necessary to raise the flip side of the argument. Otherwise you just have a thread of everyone agreeing with each other and all of the issues are not considered thoroughly.

How did transwomen end up in womens prisons? There was a landmark case years ago that determined it was a breach of human rights to not allow gender autonomy in prisoners. Unfortunately the pendulum swung too far and bad decisions were made by the prison services. HMPPS are attempting to rectify those now but progress takes time!

How many women have to share mixed sex shower facilities?

None

How many women have to share mixed sex sleeping arrangement?

None

Are these women feeling that their dignity is being respected?

On the basis of the above questions, this question is nonsensical because the scenarios you are presenting do not exist

I've chosen to centre transwomen as I believe the risks to women are pretty obvious, and people rarely consider the other side of the coin.

People constantly and only consider the other side of the coin. The narrative is always 'Oh those poor transwomen, they are in such danger in men's prisons and it makes them unhappy.'

If the standard position were to consider women, there would be no men in their prisons in the first place.

calling a transwoman who has made a genuine effort to present as a woman a man hateful

And I find calling a man 'she' offensive.

All I can say to that, is that your experience of male prisons is vastly different to mine, as you seem to be describing a unicorn. Most prisons don't even have enough pillows or shoes, let alone time to create supportive communities like that.

So call them "they". It's quite simple really.

It is if you insist on misgendering people to dehumanise them.

Trust me, I was quite surprised at how it panned out. My experience from 11 years in the male estate, mainly in LTHSE, and with substantial experience of sex offenders, was that it was a bad idea. I was expecting to have to move the person very sharpish, but it just didn't happen. A different TW, with a different set of other prisoners around them, might have had very different outcomes.

Unicorn or not, I am sure you are aware that sometimes things happen in prison that you don't expect.