Keep Prison Single Sex closing

[TinselAngel]

Just announced on Twitter.

x.com/noxyinxxprisons/status/1798973161276412028?s=46&t=PSGltfjrMyZmBtYq2-AVIQ

"After considerable thought we have decided to close KPSS down. Our last day of operation will be 30th June 2024.

We have agreed that Kate will continue to support and work with the individual prisoners, former offenders, and CJS whistleblowers with whom we have relationships. Kate is contacting everyone individually to advise them of this.

We have some materials still available and can post these out to whomever wants them: our email address will remain live, so please use this to contact us. All reports and leaflets are also available on our website which, together with our Vimeo, we will maintain as a resource, although content will not be updated.

It is no longer possible to make a donation to KPSS and all regular donations have been cancelled - however, please do check your own accounts. Our PayPal account is now closed. Both KPSS shops have been closed.

KPSS USA is unaffected by this decision. Their work will continue. Please give them a follow @NoXY_USA Any funds remaining after closing down KPSS will be transferred to them.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Between us we achieved some truly great things, including two Ministry of Justice policy changes that centre the safety and rights of women in prison. Be proud of what you have done, because none of what KPSS achieved would have been possible without you."

Yep. It took discussions like these for me to grasp the 'comparator ' argument.

Yes. This. Every day I think 'shall I type out another useless speculative analysis of the law, or shall I just scream into the void 'wtf is this bollocking bollocks?''

It's like trying to legalise up as down

It's as simple and as true as this(!). There's been such a lot gone on in the last few years but it is this, in essence. I think even on here, there's been quite a lot less questioning of positions so long as they've been GC. I've done it. I think it's only in the last year or more recently that I've started to think...hold on didn't this board used to take safeguarding as the primary position? We used to discuss it a lot more. For whatever reason now we don't so much, it's a lot more about GC belief. OK. But what's the point if we might be about to face legalisation of self-ID? We need to step back a bit and think what is real and true, and what will keep women and children safe, and not waver from that.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5094418-keep-prisons-single-sex-wind-down

Related thread.

Its amazing how the balancing of rights element of the Equality Act is been treated as the holy text in every situation. Everything else seems to be considered afterwards, if at all.

That's a rather stupid reaction isn't it?

He's not practicing law, there's a big difference..

Strikes me it was a flippant reaction to a stupid post.

Its amazing how the balancing of rights element of the Equality Act is been treated as the holy text in every situation. Everything else seems to be considered afterwards, if at all.

I agree. That's why I'm wary about claiming it's irrelevant legally what MTFs want because the exceptions say you can exclude all men even those with a GRC.

We know it rarely works like that in practice.

We know it rarely works like that in practice.

This. The rights of transwomen weigh heavy on the scales, and the rights of women, children, and religious minorities might just as well be a feather.

I don't agree with the rights v safeguarding dichotomy either. It is a human right for the vulnerable to be kept safe.

I don't agree with the rights v safeguarding dichotomy either. It is a human right for the vulnerable to be kept safe.

Yes. But there's a sort of wishy washy idea that "trans women" will be more similar to women than men in terms of risk. When actually no evidence shows this is the case and anecdotally it's not. This affects whether in the case of SSE it's seen as a safeguarding issue or a rights issue.

Treating it as a rights issue gives us more ways to win. If based on sex discrimination, the question will be "are women more disadvantaged than men by trans inclusion?". Physical danger is only one factor. It isn't a factor in the BRCC case, and yet women are being denied help if unwilling to share their trauma with (someone they perceive as) a man.

I completely agree and from very early on I've felt it was a mistake to focus on risk to women in the single sex spaces as it can be easily dismissed with appeals to how much more "vulnerable" males who identify as women are, and why they "shouldn't be punished for what men do". Privacy and dignity issues for women cannot be so easily handwaved away.

I tend to agree.

I'm not expert enough to have a view on which legal approach is preferable.

But something being a belief does not mean it isn't a fact. No-one would agree that "all my beliefs are false", but that's the implication of creating that dichotomy.

Also, the belief in Forstater was that "sex is biological, binary, immutable and important". That fourth point is crucial and is a belief (one I agree with, of course).

And in a legal environment where sex has already been given non-biological meaning in statute, it seems very high risk to ask a court to accept something different as 'fact'. What if the court holds that, consistent with the will of parliament, it's false?

@GenderRealistBloke

And in a legal environment where sex has already been given non-biological meaning in statute, it seems very high risk to ask a court to accept something different as 'fact'. What if the court holds that, consistent with the will of parliament, it's false?

Wasn't that the effect of the first instance finding in Forstater? If something isn't WORIADS it can't possibly be true either!

Maybe I'm being naive, and the law does allow for things to be both True and Unspeakable...

The judge in Forstater 1 was taken in by Twitter level TRA arguments about identity and intersex being as common as red hair etc. So I think he did think Maya was objectively wrong.

I don't know, in law or in the judgment.

I would hope that no court would rule a fact in itself (as opposed to supposed implications) could be Non-WORIADS, so hopefully it would never arise. But maybe I'm wrong: maybe some type of highly taboo fact that could never attract legal protection if expressed in an employment context?

Do any lawyers here know if a belief being ruled Non-WORIADS entails a judgment by the court that that belief is false?

First judgment overturned at appeal, 2019 by Employment Judge Tayler, para 83 (my bold)

"...The claimant largely ignores intersex conditions and the fact that biological opinion is increasingly moving away from a absolutist approach to there being genes the presence or a sense of which determine specific attributes, to understanding that it is necessary to analyse which genes are present, which are switched on, the extent to which they are switched on and the way they interact with other genes. However, I bear in mind that "coherence" mainly requires that the belief can be understood and that "not too much should be expected". A "scientific" belief may not be based on very good science without it being so irrational that it unable to meet the relatively modest threshold of coherence. On balance I do not consider that the Claimant's belief fails the test of being "attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance", even though there is significant scientific evidence that it is wrong. I also cannot ignore that the Claimant's approach (save in respect of refusing to accept that a Gender Recognition Certificate changes a person's sex for all purposes) is largely that currently adopted by the law, which still treats sex as binary as defined on a birth certificate. (Continues)

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5e15e7f8e5274a06b555b8b0/MayaForstatervssCGDEuropeCentreeforGloballDevelopmentanddMasoodAhmedd-Judgment.pdf

The typos are his, not mine, btw

So it's a granularity problem Our beliefs about sex are broadly true and useful, and TRAs are taking the piss re 'intersex' (yes, I know I'm stating the bleeding obvious!)

I have the same problem with all the language distortions. 'Women have cervixes' is fine by me even though not all women have them, and no 'women' have them and some 'men' have them. It's true enough.

I should have put "overturned at appeal" in brackets, I realise it's not that clear. It is the original judgment I'm quoting from.

Ianal but as far as I understand it woriads only applies to belief. It’s one of the Grainger Criteria which is the test applied when deciding if a belief is protected by the EA. None of the criteria require the belief to be proven to be true.

Yes, as you can see Judge Tayler doesn't think Maya is right but he doesn't fail her claim on that.

He covers his rejection of her belief as WORIADS in para 84, 88 and 90.

Sorry, 84, 85, 88 and 90

OK those paras all seem to be about hurt feelings. I suppose if you make a law based entirely on people's feelings instead of reality, this is what you are going to get 🙄