is there a thread for FWS / Prisons?

[weegielass]

Its live today on the scottish tribunals website and lasting for three days. Easy to join and good audio quality. I think that's marion on screen in the background. She seemed rather amused at the judge trying to understand the definitions.

Thanks all, and especially @ArabellaScott, for the commentary and direct quotes.

The only thing I'd say in favour of the govt arguments is that they seem roughly legally sound and plausible so long as women's rights are studiously and carefully ignored.

As soon as one considers a woman has rights equal to those of men, they collapse.

I guess I'll also concede they do roughly accord with the aims of the GRA.

Which also has been built around the deliberate absence and obfuscation of women's rights, funnily enough.

More in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/20d41b66-7678-46c9-a2c3-bcd70d6fb6a7?shareToken=c3ec34e5c7cd71e61e0744fe1682864c

I totally agree, the GRC is a lie and should never have become law. I hope Sex Matters will consider pushing for abolishment, along with continuing to push back in court.

@Igneococcus

Many thanks for posting these links to the Times coverage of the case. Such clear and straightforward reports which highlight the appallingly shabby behaviour of the Scottish government.

"SNP ministers attempted to prevent the harrowing testimony from the woman, originally sent to a young offender institution as a 17-year-old and returned to prison again in 2022, from being allowed in the case."

Thank goodness for a judge who was having none of it.

Gosh, that testimony. And so direct and honest.

Excellent article. It's one of the best I've read at portraying the experience of female prisoners.

The prisoner's testimony is chilling. No wonder the SNP ministers tried to prevent it.

"The witness described a second male prisoner, referred to as MP2, who thrived on “power and control and intimidation”. She said the behaviour reminded her of a past toxic and violent relationship, in which she had been tied to a radiator naked. “A million per cent this was a bloke behaving like a bad bloke,” the woman said. “I felt totally unsafe.”

“I felt I had no privacy from these men. Of course, I felt unsafe. My space was eroded. There was no way I could avoid them. Women have to put up with this. Put up. And say nothing. Och aye, our space was eroded — 100 per cent ....

“I am still disgusted and upset, I felt upset and hopeless. These men should not be with us. Women just have to put up. If we complain, we get punished. The prison don’t care what it’s like to be unsafe and terrified because these men are among you. I can tell you 100 per cent, I am not the only one who feels this way.”

There's more. Poor women. They don't care what happens to the women at all. They're deliberately traumatizing them so the men will be happier. It's haunting.

A former governor of a women’s prison was spot on in her testimony. I hope Lady Ross focuses on this when she makes her decision.

“In my experience … it is simply not possible to negate the risk to women’s mental and/or physical wellbeing that this practice [housing men in women’s jails] poses, and in my view, implementation of this elevates concern for males over the wellbeing of women.”

Having read everything now (IANAL) i would comment that the Ministers for Scotland argument at best fragmented.

They refer to the fact that the duties under the Euro HRA are devolved to them.

Well yes that principle is true of England and Wales and N ireland too.

But they are arguing x y and Z case law around that fact, but not once mention any NOT ANY, that confers rights for TIM’s to access opposite sex facilities.

their pleadings seem to be we done it cos we don't want to get in trouble in the ECHR your honour, and we have no recourse to get this clarified.

Well it has been clarified by the fucking Supreme Court of the UK, which like it or not they are part of.

And the HRA is hard baked in to the EQA, of the UK which the Scottish ministers must abide by.

The other thing i noted is that the arguments put forward are exactly as RMW and his compadres

I will be AGOG if FWS lose this.

Agreed. I'm so glad this was included in the evidence.

Archive version. https://archive.ph/pp6X8

Thank you for sharing that Times article.

The line about SG arguing that letting men prisoners into women's prisons was just like 'a mother taking her young son into the changing rooms' -

Wtaf? We're obviously not talking about cute little preschoolers who need to be with mummy, we're talking about adult men with criminal records. And yet again it frames women as guardians for these men, mummy providing shelter and nurture. Ffs.

That piece of stereotyped batshit incidentally comes straight from familiar sources almost word for word, they've been trying that line out since the SCJ.

Bloody awful is all i can say really.

by rights FWS should win this, but I just have a horrible feeling there’ll be some technical win for scotgov. Nothing surprises me anymore.

When i saw your user name quoting me i shit myself 😂

GRA has to go and the PC of GR with it

https://genderblog.net/fws-day-3-sex-is-semantics/

Nick Wallis' write up.

I had missed the end of the hearing - the judge has said due to the 'complexities' nobody should expect a quick outcome and it would take her some time to come to a conclusion.

The gov have done their damnedest to confuse things as much as they possibly can. Smoke, mirrors, and bullshit.

It's a game to them. They just don't care how this affects women.

They don't care about prostituted women, women prisoners, hospital patients, drug deaths, children in state schools - I could go on.

The Scottish parliament are comfortable on very good salaries, and just do not care that the country crumbles around them. They get to award themselves prizes and applaud each other.

Circle jerk establishments are becoming a serious problem across the board.

There is another article in the Times about Scotland's chief nursing officer at the time the QEUH scandal broke (or rather started to slowly emerge from the shadows while ScotGov tried their best to pretend nothing was wrong with the hospital) who said (according to one of the whistleblowers) that the bereaved families should just have been given £50K compensation "the equivalent of a trip to Disneyland". I can't even quite put into words why this enrages me so much, there is so much wrong with this. She retired and walked right into another job as chairwoman of the Scottish Police Authority.
It's just one never ending circle of incompetents moving from one well paid role to another and nothing ever gets better.

If all the women in the women's prison said they'd want to commit suicide if incarcerated with a man, then what happens? Does the SG still think his rights are more important? (the answer is obviously yes, since they didn't go there).

There are more prisoners then at risk of suicide from men in women's spaces than there are sad (coercively controlling) men.

I'm really pissed off this obvious point was not made.

The facts suggest that women are far more likely to be suicidal over being incarcerated with men than the men are. More of them will have suffered male violence for a start, so will be more likely to have PTSD associated with male bodies. Men have 160% the punch power of women, they are bigger, stronger. TIMs will have the same sex based advantages as the other men, so on the physical strength side of things have no disadvantage in the men's estate. Whereas women have a physical disadvantage with any TIM.

It's infuriating that the whole thing basically rests on 'we care more about men killing themselves than women and are willing to deploy a very large number of possibly very mentally unwell women as human shields'.

I would like more scrutiny of the suicide risk in women's prisons and the part forcibly locking them up with men has had in that.

One TIM in a woman's prison can cause mental anguish to however many women are there (100s?). So the SG argument is basically one man's wants override no matter how many hundred women's needs. It's a Taliban level of disregard of women's rights.

Forcibly locking up women with men who are ADMITTING they will coercively control from the start, along with the prison service, is such a huge women's human rights abuse. Forcing the women to deny reality to pretend the guy wearing tight leggings to show off his penis is a woman. The guy making sexual comments and threats. Getting punished if they say what they see. If they can do that then the women know they can do anything and cover it up and must lose all hope.

It's absolutely shocking.

Good point, the selection criteria of 'we don't think that this guy is dangerous' and 'this guy is threatening to commit suicide if we don't' is likely to end up selecting those people that are pre-disposed towards coercive control

I ca't quite believe the Scottish government tried to prevent that prisoner's testimony by claiming it wasn't relevant.

I can't fathom it.

Hypothetical claims of suicide risks by men - key to their case.
Actual testimony of sexual abuse by women - "irrelevant".

It's utterly terrifying how little they appear to value women. It actually makes me feel very vulnerable at times to witness how democratic western governments are taking this approach in the trans-context. "We acknowledge women's concerns, but feel trans-identifying men's are more valid" - OK; tenuous and disturbing in itself, but relative to what we're seeing here, kind of OK.

But this?

It really does make comments like this "It's a Taliban level of disregard of women's rights" feel apt in some ways. You feel awful saying it, so conscious of your privilege, and what an insult it could be to women living in unimaginably worse ways... but the appallingly literal negation and silencing of women we're seeing there is reflected in this, in our apparently absolute irrelevance...