It’s interesting, the way that laws and policy can change seemingly out of the blue.
In April last year, following a massive outcry from feminists and others concerned about trivial matters such as the safety and wellbeing of incarcerated women, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) released a press statement about changes to the policy on transgender prisoners, which was presumably in response to public disquiet about the creeping invasion of extreme transgender ideology into state agencies.
Prisons are full of women who have been sexually assaulted and raised in homes with domestic violence, sexual abuse and neglect. The current conviction rate for reported rapes is currently less than 1 per cent in England and Wales. Shockingly, it is more likely that the victim of a rape will end up in prison as a result of the trauma inflicted upon her than that the rapist will end up in prison as a result of the rape he committed.
When we look at the likes of prolific sex offender Karen White, we should be clear that men, however they decide to identify, have absolutely no place in women’s prisons. After being incarcerated, White, a trans-identified male, went on to further abuse women. Liberal media outlets used the phrase ‘her penis’ to describe White prancing around communal prison areas, terrifying women out of their wits by exposing his genitalia. This is not about modesty: it is about women knowing fine well that flashing is a threat of worse to come.
Anyway, as a result of White’s situation, the Justice Secretary promised that by October 2022 ‘transgender women with male genitalia, OR those who have been convicted of a sexual offence, should no longer be held in the general women’s estate.’
But those of us who have been campaigning against the inclusion of men in women’s prisons are not stupid. The phrase ‘general women’s estate’ is a clue that these men would still be in women’s prisons but perhaps in a separate wing.
E Wing in Downview Prison, Surrey, was set up in the wake of the Karen White scandal. It is the first dedicated wing set up to contain high-risk sex transgender offenders placed in a female rather than male prison. The men in E Wing are allowed to mix with the female population during some leisure activities. However, this should be in the men’s estate.
This also does not change the fact that female prison officers are forced to encounter these men in the course of their work, being subject to verbal threats, sexual harassment or even having to carry out intimate searches on male-bodied people. One female prison officer told me about walking into a cell occupied by a transwoman who was masturbating and refused to stop when told to.
The public are supposed to be placated by the fact that ‘risk assessments’ are carried out when the prison service is considering whether or not to send a trans-identified male to a women’s facility. This is nonsense and offensive to boot. The very presence of a male-bodied person in a confined space, where the majority of the population have been brutalised by men, is terrifying and unnerving.
After interviewing female prisoners who have been confined with trans-identified males, I was told that if these women pluck up the courage to complain to prison staff about the trans-identified males they are locked up with, the women are warned they will be disciplined for transphobia. The punishment can involve the woman having her right to phone calls and visits removed, both of which are essential lifelines for prisoners.
But lo and behold, following the massive national outcry about double rapist Adam Graham being moved to the Scottish women’s prison Cornton Vale recently, the Justice Secretary has issued an update on this policy on 25 January. It was reiterated that only in exceptional circumstances would trans-identified males serve their sentences in women’s prisons.
The updated policy framework would:
ensure a sensitive and common sense approach to meeting the needs of women in custody, while we continue to ensure that transgender prisoners are appropriately supported in which ever estate they are located in.’
But this new policy also does not cut the mustard. Trans-identified males may still end up in women’s prisons under ‘truly exceptional circumstances’. What might those circumstances be? That they are vulnerable to bullying, harassment and sexual violence from other men? In which case, get the male prison estate in order and clamp down on the culture of rape, violence and bullying. Do not leave the most vulnerable and disenfranchised women in society to mop up the mess.
What we need is an end to men in women’s prisons, and that includes male prison officers. Why is this so difficult to understand? Women have a hard enough time in prison as it is, so the last thing we should be doing is pandering to the needs and desires of men who pose a serious threat to them.
Last year, I interviewed Amy, a woman who was sexually assaulted in prison by a ‘trans woman’ who had convictions for sex offences against women and children. Amy, a brave and tenacious woman, brought a legal challenge against the MoJ over their ridiculous policy of allowing male-bodied sex offenders in the female estate. However, the judge ruled that barring all trans women from women’s prisons would be unfair and would infringe on their ‘right’ to live as their ‘chosen gender’.
If this doesn’t tell you how little women’s safety is regarded, especially when they are in prison, then nothing will.
At the time, the MoJ argued that the policy is about ‘protecting transgender people’s mental and physical health’, but it is obvious that there is a clash of rights between transwomen and actual women when it comes to protection from sexual assault.
The reason we have single-sex spaces is because a sizeable minority of men carry out sex crimes and harassment towards women and girls. There is evidence to suggest that transwomen inmates are five times more likely than non-transgender prisoners to commit sexual assault on a non-transgender prisoner in women’s jails. Now give me your arguments in favour of trans-identified men in women’s prisons.
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