Female & ”Transgender” Inmates

Some research about female inmates and their reactions to being housed with males who have a ”transgender” identity. Since Claire Fox quoted it in the House of Lords I decided to seek it out.

You can read it here: 👇

5.Women in custody.pdf

Dr Matthew Maycock has also done research into what transgender prisoners want from the prison system. I will cover that paper in another blog post. He was employed by the Scottish Prison service for this research. The Scottish Prison service has worked closely with Transgender Lobby groups on their Prison policy. As evidenced by this statement, by James Morton, of Scottish Trans Alliance. This was published in Christine Burn’s book: ”Trans Britain”

This lobby group ”strategised” that if they could make this “work”, for which I read ”get away with it”, they could then move on to eradicate all single sex spaces. Note their aim was to dispense with the requirement for a Gender Recognition Certificate. Admission to the female estate would be on the basis of self-declaration.

Dr Maycock now works at Dundee University. Here is his biography.

His starting point accepts the central tenets of transgender identity ideology; mainly that sex is “assigned” at birth and women need a new qualifier to our existence as females;”cis”. Matthew would do well to consider that many, maybe even most, women have issues with ”gender” (stereotypes) being imposed upon us because of our biology. Accepting the reality of our biological sex does not mean our sex allies with a mythical “gendered soul”.

I find these assumptions irksome, to say the least, but let us move on to consider whether he has tackled this issue fairly.

Here is the abstract: Notice the quote chosen to head-up the report. That gave me a clue about his perspective.

The abstract sets out Maycock’s aim. He will offer a ”corrective” to those feminists who ”claim” to speak for female inmates. Because Matthew works for the Scottish Prison service he has unique access to the female prison population housed with transgender inmates, of both sexes. If only there had been a requirement for ethical approval before the SPS unleashed males on incarcerated women. Their consent was either taken for granted or deemed irrelevant.

Maycock begins by claiming his research will be groundbreaking because it is the first time “cis-women” prisoners have been asked for their view. Let me repeat that. Only now is the Scottish Prison service even considering the views of females in custody. Since the SPS are also funding this research and surveying existing prisoners, in their custody, we need to bear the context in mind. The women are literal hostages to this policy. As becomes clear the “people”, referred to below, affected by this policy are the female kind. The females remain in the women’s estate irrespective of a transgender identity. 🤔. It would have been interesting had Maycock explained why this is the case.

At least Dr Maycock acknowledges that women have been marginalised in the wider debate about transgender issues. We will get on to what the good Doctor thinks about these ”feminist elements” who, against instructions, attempted to have some dialogue about prison policy. The language here is also revealing. If a male is excluded from single sex spaces we do not normally talk about it in the language of ”acceptance” and ”rejection”.

He continues with an outline of Prison Policy around the care and management of transgender prisoners. He claims England and Wales house persons in line with their sex unless they have attained the legal status as “women”. This is certainly not true. Males have been housed in the female estate without being “legally female” for some time. A little social justice speak creeps in here 👇 with the talk of the ”gender binary”. He means prison policy that recognises Humans are sexually dimorphic. Heaven forfend!

The situation in Scotland is because of the, afore-mentioned, involvement of Scottish Trans Alliance. {If you feel so inclined you could look up Gordon Pike who was also involved in drafting this policy. Pike is now subject to the judicial system himself. He was caught with thousands of indecent images of children}. The policy outlines its ethos of fairness to transgender prisoners. They interpreted fairness, to these males, as housing them in the female estate. 🤷‍♂️

The usual claims about risk profiles are made. Since we have been putting males in the female estate with criminal profiles, which include sex offences against women, I would be wary of claims about risk assessments. One such advisor on prison policy made it clear sex offences, against women, were not a bar to being placed in the female estate. This is a quote from Hansard, taken during an oral session of the Transgender Equality Inquiry. Chaired by Maria Miller and attended by Jess Phillips nobody in attendance objected to this statement. 👇. Megan is a trans-identified male.

Before Maycock gets onto the meat of his report he takes a couple of quite inaccurate side swipes against two groups who have undertaken research on the erosion of single sex spaces, in Scotland. On Women and Girls Scotland’s work he makes much of the fact that he doesn’t know the background of the women who undertook their research. He also casts doubt on their ability to speak for female women prisoners. He makes much of their lack of access to women in prison; something the authors at W&Gs Scotland are open about. {I doubt the Scottish Prison service would have been amenable to this organisation accessing women prisoners}. I will just point out that they did in fact state the background of the researchers. One of them was a “transwoman”, two were working class and all reside in Scotland. They also sent the survey out quite widely. The list below includes three organisations pushing trans-inclusive policies; Engender, Rape Crisis Scotland and the Women’s Equality Party.

W & Gs Scotland are also transparent about their lack of access to prisoners. This only comprised one chapter of their research. They did, nevertheless get responses from women with prison experience. 👇

They also make it clear that they regard this research very much as a beginning and much more is needed. They did get over 2000 responses to their survey. I will cover this research in more detail on another blog.

Maycock outlines the methodology for his research. It consisted of a survey and unstructured interviews. He spoke to 15 prisoners. He also makes quite a revealing statement about how the survey participants were selected. They were recruited by ”gatekeeper prison officers”. It would have been important, at this point, to clarify the recruitment process. It would have been helpful if we could be certain all the women impacted by this policy got an opportunity to participate. Even if the participants were a representative sample there is a risk that a female prisoner’s responses would simply toe the line; considering they are commenting on policy instituted by their prison over lords.

It takes a brave woman to express hostility to existing prison policy while incarcerated. Thankfully there were some prepared to be honest about their objections.

First Doctor Maycock gives a broad overview of the sample. All had been placed on a wing with a trans-identified male. They have varying length sentences to serve. Some are middle-class and educated others are described as working class with no formal education. They claim varying sexual orientations. Matthew then outlines his own identity as a white, cis, heterosexual male. (Of course he is!)

This is how he badges his findings. Prisoners who toe the prison authority line are labelled ”accepting” and those who raise objections or concerns are labelled ”rejecting”. Quite emotionally loaded terms.

The “accepting” women.

He begins with the ”accepting” women. Notice there are a lot of examples of the women as emotional support humans for the males. They are accepting, supportive, encouraging and recognise the authenticity of the males identifying as women, even the ones with a penis. They are all behaving in a compliant manner.

Lucy is fully on board with the prison agenda. Lucy is a newly minted lesbian who compares her journey to the “daily struggles” of the transgender inmates.

Another prisoner, Isla, is very supportive of the transgender inmates and repeats the narrative of the women nurturing the transgender inmates on their difficult journey. This is a recurrent theme. The author sees this as positive reinforcement for the policy, I see it as women pressed into service as validation aids. The women are providing, free, emotional labour.

In another revealing statement we find that the women are also supporting females who identify as transgender. Why are they not in the male estate living their authentic truth? 🤔

Next up Emily who is fully supportive, even to the trans-identified males who, she coyly observes, have their ”bottom bits” . Emily makes it clear the penis is not dangerous as it has been rendered impotent by the hormones. Apart from the penis ”she was just like a lassie”. Notice the author takes at face value statements like ”She didn’t act like a man. He has observations when some women question transgender males who didn’t ”act like women”. It seems it is perfectly possible to accept sex stereotypes if they align with a proclaimed gender identity but not if you question a man’s authenticity.

Matthew proceeds to talk about the wide acceptance of transgender women and the women who do not see them as a risk. He is particularly keen to hear from women who, despite a history of abuse by violent males, do not see the transgender males as “manly” or feel intimidated by them. Jessica tells him she sees the transgender inmates as women.

There are a couple of women who are heterosexual and claim it is the Lesbians who cause more problems. One of them, Ella, claims she has been exposed to Lesbians having sex. Matthew does not question this anecdotal evidence. Later in the report he does undermine testimony when women allege transgender prisoners have been caught having sex with women. The bias is evident throughout the report. The statements from women who accept Maycock’s agenda are accepted without question. The women who don’t accept men in women’s prisons are referred to as ”prejudiced” and accused of using ”Terf” talking points,

Maycock quotes another prisoner uncomfortable with Lesbians as a result of being straight and returns to Ella who is positively gushing about the opportunity to watch the journey of a transgender woman up close. Seems some of the glitter has rubbed off on Ella.

Here it is not clear what prompted this reply, from Jessica, questioning the work of Murray, Black, Mackenzie. They are another feminist group Maycock criticises. Whatever promoted Jessica’s response It does give the researcher a good quote. Jessica rejects the idea that female prisoners have any specific vulnerabilities. This runs counter to the many reports on the female prison demographic who demonstrate other wise.

Here is a quote from some research done by the Howard League, Scotland.

One of the ”accepting” women, Emily, who earlier waxed lyrical about a particular transgender women, qualifies her acceptance to limit it to the ”genuine” transgender inmates. The issue here is that the prison service is accepting men based on a self-declaration and leaving the untrained women to do their own risk assessments, on a case by case basis. As he does throughout Maycock quickly follows this critical comment with prisoner statements that there are “cis” women who are more of a risk to women than a transgender woman. This is a common tactic of trans activists. The Howard League report, quoted above, found less than 2% of Scottish, female, prisoners were held for violent offences.

Another prisoner, Alison, goes further to prioritise the vulnerability of the transgender inmates who, she feels, are the more vulnerable demographic. Alison is quoted at length stating that there is no evidence of violent trans prisoners. This is followed up by Matthew gushing about the acceptance, empathy and support the women display. He seems to like women who display maternal instincts to his brethren. This is a reflection of the way females are socialised to be accepting and kind. I think this can be a positive attribute so it is quite sickening to see how it is, here, being used against women.

The “rejecting” women

No we turn to the ”rejecting” women and what they have to say. Not all the women followed the script.

50% of a selected sample did not see the transgender women as women and believed they should be housed in accommodation appropriate for their actual sex.

As Rhona Hotchkiss (retired Prison Governor) points out the research showed 80% objected and only 3 had no reservations at all.

For Matthew this makes those women ”prejudiced”. The Curtice report, referenced below, contrasts with other reports which had quite different results when people realised some of those ”women” demanding access to female only facilities retained a penis.

Here Matthew uses a slur (Terf); which is often accompanied by threats of rape and violence. These women’s comments are being delegitimised in the way the preceding statements were not. One of the prisoners even inserts the, thought terminating, cliche ”Trans Women are Women”. Maycock is losing more credibility by the sentence and is hardly helped by referencing Sally Hines. 😳

How on earth can an intelligent man be shocked that females associate the possession of a penis with a man? Notice the women are having these secret conversations between themselves about the men they are forced to live among. Maycock attempts to extract some positives about a 50% rejection rate for the prison policy. He quotes a lot of women, somewhat apologetically, explaining how women who have histories of abuse associate a penis with a man. 🤷‍♂️

The women are clearly talking privately about their worries because they are being forced to pretend fully intact men are women. This is using a, literally, captured audience and forcing them to participate in this, ideologically driven, social experiment.

Here a prisoner expresses concern that she may be saying the unsayable to a prison employee which indicates she knows her views have become verboten. Clearly some women, with backgrounds of child abuse know a man when they see one. Matthew feels this complicates the issue. It doesn’t though. Taking advantage of female socialisation to encourage compliance with the idea men can become women is cruel. Looking for a loophole because some women are, or profess to be, OK with penis bearing women is unethical.

Ellie and all the other women are being forced to judge authenticity of motivation, to make their own risk assessments. We know that trained prison staff have allowed dangerous males to enter the female estate and the women’s fears are being dismissed /downplayed by this academic. What these women are being forced into by this prison policy is nothing short of a human rights violation.

The gaslighting here. Ella sees a man because he is a man. Yet, the researcher is writing her up as if her perception is problematic. The fact that this man 👇 starts an inappropriate conversation about porn is no surprise. She clearly finds him intimidating and points out that he has a man’s build.

He quotes Ellie at length and I suspect he finds her comments outrageous. I find her plain speaking utterly refreshing. Bravo Ellie!

Maycock, of course, intends to paint a picture which suggests Ellie is a conspiracy theorist. It is, however, naive to believe men are not plotting to escape the fate of being incarcerated with other males. Whether for nefarious motives, to access vulnerable women, or just to have easier jail time. Of course it is happening.

This is simply not true. Sex offenders, who are male, have been allowed into the female estate since at least 2009. I have covered more than one case on this blog.

Why didn’t Matthew produce some actual statement from the Scottish Prison Service that this doesnt happen; rather than using Freya’s faith in the system to undermine Ellie’s account? Why is he putting (wo) in brackets when Ellie is saying ”man”?

I was quite furious whilst reading this document. The version you are reading is significantly reduced in length. My first version included a lot more clips from the women. There is plenty more to be enraged about. Sadly.

Again Freya is used to undermine the testimony of Ellie. Since the staff are implemeting the policy and Matthew is funded by the SPS I am not surprised the prison officers did not corroborate Ellie’s story. Below the framing is also changed so that the fear of a penis bearing male is presented as a cross the trans-identifying male has to bear!

Some of the women then talk about transgender males who they had accepted and supported only to find those same men had re-identified with their birth sex as soon as they were released. Who’d have thunk it? The women talk about zero-effort males who enter the female estate and make no effort to pass as ”transgender” but, in fact behaved like controlling males.

Here a prisoner lists her experiences with men who she feels gamed the system.

Maycock, to his credit, perhaps, includes the statements but then interprets them as the women having stereotypical expectations of how a woman should behave. This is despite the women reporting men who made no effort to cover their genitalia which means the women have been subject to indecent exposure. I mean nothing says ”lady” like getting your dick out!

The prison service should protect vulnerable males. There are vulnerable wings for ex-police officers and paedophiles who are at elevated risk in the male estate. As it stands my trans-identified, and gay, son would be vulnerable on both those counts. He would only be protected for his ”trans-identity”. What the prison service have done is mask their own failures by making the problem a ”woman’s” problem. This is unacceptable.

Matthew’s conclusion is somewhat different to mine. He seems to be of the view that more exposure to transgender people will eradicate these transphobic views. In fact this policy has pitted two protected characteristics against one another. This is a dangerous, rash and insensitive way to treat women. Ironically this sex denying policy is 100% SEXist.

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