Women's jail campaigners demand transmen offenders should be kept in female prisons *Title edited at OP's request*

[IwantToRetire]

Women's jail campaigners are demanding that the growing number of trans male offenders should be kept in female jails.

Dr Kate Coleman, of Keep Prisons Single Sex, said that the instances of women identifying as men mid-sentence is a “growing problem”.

But she believes that such prisoners should be treated as women - and that moving them to men’s prisons or a special “trans unit” would be misguided and dangerous.

“Whilst the focus, rightly in my view, has been on the risks that males who identify as transgender pose to women in prison, the challenges of adequately and appropriately meeting the needs of females who identify as transgender must be addressed.

“These needs must be met within the female estate.

“I understand that females who identify as men are difficult to manage.

“But there is no quandary about where to house her. She is female and belongs in the female estate. She must be managed in a way that is continuous with the way in which all other female prisoners are managed. Housing her in the male estate is not even a question that should be asked.

“This is for her own safety and for her own benefit as it is in the female estate that she will be able to access the services and programmes that are necessary for her to progress.”

NB Only extracts, NOT the whole article which can be read in full at https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/womens-jail-campaigners-demand-trans-33750904

The headline on this thread is very misleading. I thought you were talking about men. Can you change it please.

There is no such thing as a 'trans male'. Male and female are biological sex based and fixed realities, and not identities. Remove that muddle and there's no further problem. There are some female people who for varying reasons want to identify as being something other than a girl or woman. The female prison estate is for all females based on the reality of sex based needs and differences, and should accomodate all additional needs and diversities of female.

There is probably a growing conversation to be had about how to hold violent and disturbed female prisoners on testosterone in the women's estate for the needs, protection and safety of other women, but that's a different conversation.

The headline is from the Daily Record. Complain to them.

Thanks. That’s more of it. Constant deliberate obfuscation. So sick of the mangling of language.

Any female requesting to be jailed with males is indulging in self harm and should be referred for psychological support.

This is fucking obvious.

Exactly. It's intentional fogging and blurring pushed on the media and everyone else by political activists, mostly at this point I see no other drive than to smash boundaries in about the same way toddlers smash mashed potato, with about the same level of thought, emotional intelligence and ego involved.

It's bollocks. We've had: 'what is a woman/anyone who identifies as a woman' - which in fact means females and males who want to identify as women, based on everyone fully understanding that 'woman' is a female adult and so a man identifying as one is a man engaging in a personal fiction of being a woman. With a whole lot of social pomo wangling about 'constructs'.

'What is a male/anyone identifying as a male' is flat bollocks. Male is a fixed unchanging biological fact, it's not a chosen social reality. You might as well be talking about trans horses at this point.

Case report from New York state, in "Normal Life" by Dean Spade.

Jim is a woman who thinks she can become a man, and the judge puts her in the men's jail. You can get the whole book as a PDF if you search online.

If you find that preface and read the first two pages but substitute the correct (female) pronouns, it's glaringly obvious how badly-treated this woman has been. The male pronouns obfuscate that.

I used to struggle with that too, until I heard (think it was Helen Joyce?) the explanation that if you replace "trans" with "fake" it makes sense.

I actually think trans men would be very vulnerable to sexual assault if housed in a male prison on same wing as men.
They should be in their own section if possible in female prison. Same as trans women should be in male ones. But for slightly different reasons obviously.

Given how small the female prison population is relative to the male, and how vanishingly tiny 'transmen' are likely to be within that population, a wing is unrealistic, but the handful of women involved should make it a fairly easy issue to manage safely.

I had a quick Google and read a tiny bit of the book. The author, from the photo, looks like Sam Spade's much younger sister wearing a tatty moustache. Must have been in the vanguard of the current fashion for claiming a trans identity. Seems to have made transrights a career, if not a monomania (impact of the War on Terror on transgender rights anyone?). From Wikipedia seems to have had the usual traumatic childhood. Although in many ways inspiring, a real pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, definitely a grafter. Seems to have all the RSOH beliefs; abolish prison, anti-Israel, etc.

'Jim', must also have been an early adopter possibly prior to 2011. I'm struggling to believe the story as told, there's a lot missing. 'Jim' apparently has a DSD but must be a biological female because she menstruates. She may have been incorrectly observed as male at birth although was raised as a girl, doesn't say. There's nothing in the vignette that says 'Jim' legally changed her gender, I don't know if that was even possible then. There's no mention of her legal sex. She's somehow on testosterone but has to stop when jailed, hence the periods. I suppose it's possible that she was very masculinised by the hormone and that's what the various law enforcement bods went off? Possibly with documents that erroneously recorded her sex or she'd somehow got changed? Anyway our hero, at least for the purposes of the propaganda book, leaves 'Jim' sentenced to an unknown length of time (possibly five years) in a male jail. For all I know she's still there.

Considering the massive increase in girls and women who claim to have a trans identity, often accompanied by an unstable mental state, 'Jim' can't be the only female who's run foul of the American justice system. What's happening to them all?

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/strip-searches-trauma-isolation-trans-men-describe-life-bars-rcna6490

From the US, describing the experiences of 'transmen' in jail.

I read a Reddit thread yesterday where not one but 3 five foot 1 "trans men" were trying to claim that they definitely passed to everyone.

These women are obviously not going to be safe in the male estate, whatever flawed perception they have of how they are seen by others.

While we’re discussing Transmen in prison, it’s probably worth noting that this woman…

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14009217/amp/Woman-prisoner-wrongly-sent-male-jail-forced-stay-overnight-masculine-features.html

… was a transman

(ie was complicit in the ‘mix up’ - claimed to be a man, likely had M on ID, probably had an exogenous testosterone induced beard):

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/female-prisoner-sent-mens-maximum-34023334.amp

That's a really important detail which was glossed over a lot when the story came out, as if they'd just sent a random woman to the men's estate.

Oh, but wait - I'm sure we were blamed for this at the time.

As in, pesky 'gender crits' have created a climate where women who don't look sufficiently womanly will be accidentally sent to men's prisons, just as we're making women get harassed for not looking feminine enough.

If this was a woman who was attempting to pass herself off as a man then that's a completely different slant, isn't it.

I have read somewhere that women who take testosterone do present a management problem in female prisons because one side effect of testosterone is (unsurprisingly) that it can increase a person's tendency to violence. Also can make you stronger. It does seem bizarre that women have access to drugs that cause such side effects.

Not that any of this means that these women shouldn't be dealt with in the female estate but just that it does pose a problem.

From the article I posted upthread:

'...transgender men would not necessarily be safer if they were housed in men’s facilities, as opposed to being housed according to their sex assigned at birth. However, he added, that does not mean they do not experience physical or sexual violence in women’s prisons'
...
'Trans men may also be unfairly identified as threats to other inmates and punished, said El Sabrout, who said others “perceive them as threatening” and “dangerously sexual,” particularly when they begin taking testosterone. '
...
'When they were interviewed, most incarcerated trans men said they would not want to be transferred to a men’s prison. Some, including Graham, said they would prefer to be placed in transgender-specific housing units, an approach that was previously used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and some city jails to house trans women, while others said they would not feel comfortable in those environments.

“Special units can cause you to feel isolated,” Ronnie Fuller, the trans man incarcerated in Georgia, wrote in a letter, adding that he “would feel like I am not being treated as a human but as an outcast.”'
...
'According to data provided by the California Corrections Department, 315 people housed in male institutions have requested to be housed in female institutions since the state began implementing its new policy, and 10 people housed in female institutions have requested to be housed in male institutions. None of the requests to transfer to men’s facilities has thus far been approved. ''

A conundrum.

Apart from having prison systems, I'm unsure of the similarities between the prison systems within the UK vs the multiplicity of those in the US. Even in the US, there seem to be substantial differences between coasts and states re: race, gangs, city affiliation etc.

There seem to be many variations when comparing the female estate to the point where it's difficult to generalise from one to another.

There doesn't seem to be any ideal solution to housing women who claim to be trans. Nothing that wouldn't leave some of them unsatisfied. Putting them in a male prison, certainly in the general population, is insane. I don't think a third space would make all of them happy either. From the article it would leave them feeling othered and isolated, much like being kept out of the general population of their natal of identified sex might. Also would a third space be enough? Housing tm and tw together? Particularly as the latter would massively outnumber the former. Some of the things they complain about seem petty, from both sides; hair length, beards, underwear. Others; hormones and breastbinders, I can understand why prison authorities might wish to be cautious handing out treatments that are harmful. Regarding healthcare and assaults, sexual or otherwise, it's wrong but I suspect any prisoner might have similar tales. Unfortunately, I doubt that makes tm prisoners special.

It's arguable that the tm, Graham, in the nbc article who committed monetary crimes should have been given a non-custodial sentence anyway.

Graham, had a girlfriend from whom, in addition to unspecified insurance fraud, she stole $90,000. Perhaps with therapy she could have accepted her sex and grown up to be a butch lesbian.

There doesn't seem to be any ideal solution to housing women who claim to be trans. Nothing that wouldn't leave some of them unsatisfied

It's odd but if they called it the AFAB estate this would probably go some way to keeping those women happy but I can never understand why AFAB is considered non-triggering whereas "female" sends a he/him or they/them into paroxysms of despair, when they essentially mean the same thing.

I can understand why prison authorities might wish to be cautious handing out treatments that are harmful.

Yes especially when a prison is probably a place where radicalisation or social contagion might take hold quite easily.

It's odd but if they called it the AFAB estate this would probably go some way to keeping those women happy but I can never understand why AFAB is considered non-triggering whereas "female" sends a he/him or they/them into paroxysms of despair, when they essentially mean the same thing.

I guess it's the suggestion that the "assignation" of the female sex doesn't have to be final, which is obviously bollocks but less triggering.