Transwomen in female prisons

Does this also mean that men can switch genders to suit themselves? The figures will be definitely skewed if this is the case.

Good grief. This just underlines what many of us have been thinking.
The crux of the matter is this if the man, whether he says he is a woman or not, if he has a penis he is a man. That is it and should not be housed in a womens prison.

It's a difficult problem. The trans woman I used to chat to would have had a horrendous time in a men's prison (not that I can imagine her doing anything than would get her imprisoned). The two who combined skirts with five o'clock shadow might not have been a good fit in a women's prison.

I am not a believer in the 'if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about' line of thinking, as things can go horribly wrong for people who wouldn't expect it. Nonetheless, the vast majority of transpeople aren't going to find themselves in jail, and nobody with a heart would want those who do to be treated more harshly than other prisoners by being in the wrong jail.

The problem, of course, is with people (AFAIK exclusively men) who claim trans status on arrest, in order to get into women's jails, where they think they might get an easier time, or worse, where they hope to find victims - many of them already have convictions for sexual assault or rape. Chewbacca posted photos of a number of such people on the last thread on this topic that reached 1000 posts and closed, and anyone who didn't read that thread could find them easily - they are towards the end of the thread.

When it comes to the statistics, man identifying as women means that crime figures are skewed, yes. As things stand, rape is a crime that can only be carried out with a penis, but Trans Rights Activists (TRAs) are pushing for it to be redefined as a sexual assault carried out with an object. Both are clearly traumatic for the victim, but to call all of them 'rape' means that a male-only category is subsumed into a gender-free one, so the figures are less nuanced. Similarly, if crimes by transwomen are recorded as female, then all stats for all categories of crime will be corrupted.

The fact that the men in Mollygo's link have reverted to male after release from jail can only suggest that their trans status claims were deliberately staged - something that has concerned many women for some time.

The article from Debbie Hayton made it quite clear how difficult it is to differentiate and yet she still said that TW should not be in female prisons.
Maybe, until they have separate prisons, TW should be housed together in a separate wing of a male prison.
Certainly, ALL crimes committed by TW should be recorded as TW crimes. That way, since we know TW are men, we could simply add the crimes by men claiming to be men and those who are TW together and get a correct total.

It's such a mess, as any attempt to discuss trans issues dispassionately is met with 'No Debate' and accusations of transphobia.

Speaking personally, I wouldn't want to see transwomen who have been living as transwomen for ages before the sentence be sent to a male prison - it seems unnecessarily cruel. I'm not sure where they should go, if they still have a penis, but until there are enough places in trans wings (at present there are very few) maybe they could be in separate areas of the prison - I don't know, as I am not any sort of prison expert. Again, speaking personally, and I know some would disagree with this, I think that surgically transitioned transwomen should be in a female prison - there is no reason to deny them this, and although they may not be women, as sex can't be changed, they are highly unlikely to be more of a risk than any other inmate. My guess is that someone who has surgically transitioned is probably far more unlikely to commit an offence that leads to imprisonment than a non-transitioned transwoman anyway, and they certainly wouldn't be faking trans status in order to get a place in a female jail.

The thing is though, it's not for women who are concerned about these issues to make these decisions - the prison service needs to sort it out - so cries of 'what do you want to happen?' are very unhelpful.

I agree Doodledog with what you say re surgically transitioned transwomen and also that there should be a separate areas for long standing transwomen.

Good post Doodledog and I agree. I want all crime recorded by sex not gender and even though I agree a fully transitioned TW is unlikely to be a danger to women I'd want a full risk assessment before placement in the female estate. Transmen prisoners are going to be a different problem, I understand the objection to housing them with men, but I don't think they should be held with women, they need separate transgender facilities.

The last time I was asked what do you want to happen? I wrote a list, one request being that I wanted men to sort out their own problems and stop passing them onto the female community to resolve. We hear very little, if anything, about trans men dramatically skewing the reporting of crime stats, sexually assaulting natal men in changing rooms and men only spaces or only transitioning to the male gender after they've committed a sex crime and are facing jail in a women's prison. It would therefore appear to be a problem with men. I'd like them to sort it out and stop expecting women to come up with solutions to the problems that they cause in women's sports, women's prisons, women's safe spaces and women's refuges.

I couldn't agree more, Chewbacca. It's almost as though even though transwomen want to be women they still want to opt out of the emotional labour and general 'sorting out', isn't it? ?

Well yes, Chewbacca. Maybe we need to start telling men to ‘be kind’, a phrase often lobbed towards women, and then transwomen would be perfectly safe in men’s prisons.

I wanted men to sort out their own problems and stop passing them onto the female community to resolve.

If only, Chewbacca, if only.

It's somewhat telling isn't it that eg saying only women have a cervix always seems to elicit the response that mentions transwomen, when in fact if these politicians had half a brain cell between them, the correct rebuttal would point out that yes this is true, but females who identify as males, transmen, may still have theirs that was present at birth. Given that places like the Tavistock are seeing huge rises in the number of females wishing to transition you'd expect to hear much more from and about transmen, but no the narrative is constantly about transwomen. Could that be because transmen offend at the same rates as the women they were born?
SueDonim I agree men do need to be kinder and far more accommodating in their spaces of 'men who wish to live and present as women.' That's in all areas of life. I take issue with the safety of transwomen being a reason they should be housed with women. Any beautiful young male prisoner will be in danger in a male prison, should his safety also mean he should be housed in the female estate? I digress, prisons and the loss of liberty are punishment, but they should also be places of safety for every inmate.

We do hear about transmen having cervices though, as that's why the 'person with a cervix' thing came in in hospitals. They are giving birth, which couldn't be a more female thing to do, but done't want to be called women, so we end up with this idiotic notion of men with cervices.

I keep saying it, but why not have women, men, transwomen and transmen? Recognise that transpeople exist, but also that they are the sex they were born into, and at times they will need to accept that, even though they can 'live as' their chosen gender for most of the time.

It's the insistence that TWAW, and TMAM that causes 90% of the problems.

Oh I absolutely agree Doodledog, but what astounds me is people like David Lammy who made that statement as in the image I attach. If an educated MP can spout such uninformed rubbish, where oh where is any critical sense going to come from? And DL is far from alone or unusual amongst those who would formulate our laws in this area. Yes accept TWAM and TMAF but that they choose to live their lives as the opposite sex, no problem, except in those very few situations where your natal sex matters.

I think that there is so much mixed messaging and fear of Stonewall that people are scared to state the obvious- that transmen are women and transwoman are men - they have just chosen to live in a way more usual for the opposite sex, which is fine.

They do not miraculously change sex, and grow cervices or testes. They still need to have the health checks and so on relevant to their biology, and no amount of bullying people into denying that the above is true will change any of that.

Lammy was between a rock and a hard place. Make a stupid comment and people think he’s an idiot, or speak the truth and risk the wrath of TRAs who have hounded many people out of their jobs, and contrived to make their lives as difficult as possible, simply for saying that it is not possible to change sex.

There is currently controversy about Izzard on Twitter. He didn't start it, but Graham Norton referred to Izzard as 'he' and 'trans allies' pounced on it and demanded 'cancellation' of Norton for 'misgendering' Izzard. How can it be wrong to use the male pronoun to describe someone who switches between male and female almost daily? Izzard himself has said that he's not bothered about pronouns, so the people picking on Norton can only be using the 'misgendering' for their own ends. Graham Norton is practically a National Treasure, and can hardly be accused of homo or transphobia. If he did anything wrong at all, it was clearly an accident or a slip of the tongue, but the militancy of TRAs is such that they never miss a chance to 'have a go'. It is ridiculous, but maybe understandable that so many politicians want to talk about policies rather than get enmeshed in a Through The Looking Glass style battle.

And it’s rule by fear that is promoting all these cries of transphobia. A few women are now beginning to take a stand at the risk of finding themselves cancelled, blocked, reviled and threatened.
That’s true feminism in action; supporting women, not the wishy-washy stuff that’s coming out now about supporting everybody.

women are not safe anywhere from predatory men, even jail now it seems...

Nanna1, if you’ve been following threads like this one, they’re about the erosion of women’s (females’) rights by some (not all) transwomen and their supporters. Many of those supporting TW to the detriment of females, are surprisingly female themselves including the CEO of Stonewall, Nancy Kelly.
Their method of dealing with females who state that transwomen are not female, is to shout NO DEBATE or or transphobic and demand that the person stating the truth should be cancelled!

It always surprises me when people spearheading some of the initiatives are women, but it’s often the case - Nicola Sturgeon being a case in point, and yes, Nancy Kelly. Sometimes, as with David Lammy, it will be fear of being targeted that stops women from speaking out, but that doesn’t explain why people like Sturgeon are willing to throw women under a bus in favour of the TWAW fiction.

I think it’s a deep-down form of misogyny, Doodledog.

Lammy was between a rock and a hard place. Make a stupid comment and people think he’s an idiot, or speak the truth and risk the wrath of TRAs who have hounded many people out of their jobs, and contrived to make their lives as difficult as possible, simply for saying that it is not possible to change sex. yes I was rather hard singling him out, I think he just drew the short straw.
It does annoy me though that it's only people like J K Rowling who is so rich and influential she can't be totally cancelled, despite the TRA's best efforts, that can actually speak the truth. She has been subject to the most appalling, vile abuse and I couldn't blame her if she just retreated from the arena. If a larger number of people were to be brave, speak the truth and take the consequences, then perhaps discussion would return and the bullying 'no debate' would be silenced forever.
What I think is the saddest aspect is the number of women, who knowing they're unlikely to be personally affected, are willing to sacrifice other women to their personal ambition. If you don't think you'll ever need a women's refuge, or be imprisoned for a crime perhaps you don't care about those women who will be in these places.
It's like the 'sex work is work' brigade, do they honestly consider it a carer option for their sister, daughter, wife etc? That 'servicing' countless men every day is no different to working in a nice clean office or the checkout at Tesco's. How come the rich and/or famous don't boast about their female relatives who chose a career in sex work?

I don’t know if this link will work as the article is behind a firewall, but it’s worth a try. Unaccustomed as I am to agreeing with Tories, it pretty much sums up my views on the matter and is worth a read.

It’s by Jackie Doyle-Price in The Times

Thanks for that. Yes it works. About time too. Maybe if it doesn’t get shouted down and she doesn’t get ‘cancelled’, the other parties might take it up too, instead of their current stance.

It would be great if JK Rowling were given a place in the HOL. There are some sensible people in there, and whatever people may think about the fairness of the setup, at least they can say what they like without worrying about putting off voters who have been swayed by Stonewall.