Trans-identifying people & Prison

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Some more research about Scottish Prisons; who employed a researcher to draft reports justifying, I would argue, their policy of allowing self-identifying males to be housed in the female estate. This researcher had also undertaken research into the females forced into mixed sex spaces. You can read about their experiences here:

Female & ”Transgender” Inmates

This research paper covers his work with trans-identifying prisoners. They were overwhelmingly male. The first paper he published, on this group, can be read here 👇

Maycock pains trans prisoners

He followed this up with another paper on the same subjects so I will cover that next. Matthew begins by referencing the paper, linked below, covering female experiences in the prison system.

Women in Prison:

Women in Prison

This paper focuses on sex differences in prison experiences. The researchers reported that the experiences of the female prisoners were so harrowing those conducting the interviews were left ”reeling”.

It is well worth reading the entire paper to get a sense the ways in which the female experience of prison is materially different to that of male prisoners. One of the key deprivations the women highlight is loss of privacy.This makes it all the more astounding women have been forced into mixed sex spaces. Here is another quote from that paper:

Matthew references this paper but his comment concentrates on the fact it is not inclusive of self-proclaimed ”women”.

Wrong Hall. Wrong Clothes.

The contrast between the experiences of female prisononers and the travails of the transgender prisoners is stark. The incidents considered ”transphobic abuse” were linked to the need for validation in an opposite sex identity. The title of the study gives a flavour of the sources of pain for these prisoners. These were being housed according to their biological sex and not having access to opportunities to ”perform” a new gender identity.

The sample interviewed is set out below:

The females, who identify as men, are held in the female estate. The Scottish Prison Service claims Gender Identity takes primacy, in terms of prison location, but recognises the vulnerability of females to sexual assault, in the male estate. It is also significant that of the males there are 5 held in the female estate, 5 were assessed as too high risk and a further prisoner was segregated. This is very much a pattern reflective of biological sex not ”identity”. Notice also that the SPS operate on a self-identified basis and include ”social transition” as valid. Here’s what the paper had to say about the risk assessed males: This was also described as a source of ”pain”.

Here is a summary of the kind of pain unique to the experience of transgender prisoners:

The key issues identified are not having access to the estate housing the opposite sex, misgendering, misnaming and transphobia. Since we already know, from the women’s accounts, some of these men were fully intact, bearded males, who re-identified with their sex on release, is it any wonder that some were ”misgendered”?

The author makes much of the concept of “authenticity” or the ”real deal”. Some of the pain attributed to the community centres on a lack of available opportunity to display your ”gender” and have it recognised by others. Here one prisoner outlines their experience and the role of the prison staff. Assessing motivations for transition would seem to be an essential part of any risk assessment but here it is approached as insensitivity on the part of the prison staff. A healthy degree of suspicion would seem to be an essential attribute when dealing with incarcerated criminals. 🤷‍♂️

This prisoner is half right. Your personal identity is your own business right up to the point when you demand we participate in your identity and that the world be reorganised to validate your self-perception. Then it becomes a societal issue.

Here the author raises the issue of disparity of treatment between the women and the females with a male identity. He is avoiding the issue here. The trans-identified males are held in the female estate because of the danger of sexual assault from males. The rest of the women were given no such consideration when they were allocated to mixed sex spaces.

I am struggling to muster up the prescribed amount of empathy for the deprivations described here. Maybe I am non-binary? Why is the prison service pandering to this level of entitlement and narcissism?

There are quite a few quotes in a similar vein. What strikes me is how much is bound up with a performance with all the stereotypical expectations of what makes a woman. Clothes, hair and make-up do not a woman make!

The prison is described as undermining the transition journey by not supplying the accoutrements, deemed necessary, to perform femininity. Maycock frames this as an abuse of prison power. This is what we call ”transperbole”.

Many of the quotes relate to lack of progress in their transition because they are unable to access hormones on line, as they had done outside. Appointments at Gender Clinics are difficult to arrange and one even complains he didn’t get enough notice to ”get ready”.

A number of the prisoners raise the issue of lack of role models for their social transition because they are not able to mix with their target sex. This makes it clear that the women are being treated as validation aids and expected to behave as support humans.

Here is another quote from a female. How are you really a ”man” if you have to copy men to learn how to do it? How is any of this authentic? What is a ”proper man”?

Here an inmate claims they can’t learn to perform their ”gender” from prison officers of their target sex. It has to be prisoners. Why? Are the female prison officers not performing their gender accurately?

The study then covers issues of social isolation, lack of support from families, some of whom are unaware of the new gender identity, and missing LGBT support groups from the outside. There are mixed feelings about ”Transgender” wings which don’t provide sufficient opportunities to mix with the target sex.

There are also mixed views about how safe it is to be transgender whilst in custody. One male shares an in incident where he was subject to sexualised comments about his “breasts” and penis. Another shared an anecdote about an aggressive female:

It is noticeable that these incidents are taken at face value. This in marked contrast to any tales of aggressive or sexually inappropriate behaviour shared by the females, in Maycock’s previous paper. In that paper he was skeptical often juxtaposing another women’s comment which undercut the testimony. The author says these tales are typical of the transphobic abuse meted out to the prisoners but does note an absence of transphobic violence or sexual abuse. Note that some females have actually been raped/sexually assaulted by male prisoners who were allocated to the female estate.

The report suggests that the lack of transphobic abuse is because the prison authorities respond to reports of transphobia and report any prisoner found to have indulged in this. These reports can result in time added onto sentences. I suspect Maycock sees this as positive but I find it deeply sinister, especially if correctly sexing someone comes under that heading. And it clearly does: 👇

Maycock then ties himself in knots about the issue of reporting other prisoners. Snitching is seen as something bound up with femininity so the trans-identified males don’t mind reporting because it validated their “identity”. I find the logic here quite torturous. The transgender person here would appear to be able to unleash the prison authorities on other prisoners. This looks more like an act of male dominance to me.

The author does not report all his findings in this paper as he is intending to publish another one. He does manage to throw in a reference to biological essentialism which none of these queer theorists appear to understand.

We are not saying that women have to be nurturing, emotional support humans who demonstrate their maternal instincts at every opportunity. We are just saying sex matters and is a reliable indicator for male pattern violence and sex offending. The amount of time Maycock uses the word ”support” in relation to what he expects of women, vis a vis transgender prisoners, is very revealing. He seems to have very stereotypical expectations about women and how men need make-up, hair and clothes to perform their authentic self.

I will leave you with this observation by Frances Crook of the Prison reform organisation , the Howard League.

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THE APARTHEID OF SEX: Rothblatt

Who exactly is writing policy for the Ministry of Justice?

This blog is going to focus on what Rothblatt had to say about prisons. Rothblatt has a lot to say about a range of issues; as a late-transitioning transsexual with an interest in Trans Humanism. I will do a series looking at Rothblatt’s ideas across a range of topics impacting women. Women are a SEX CLASS not an “identity” for men to claim whether it is done as an act of dominance or as a refuge. We can support males who reject their masculinity but no ally would claim to be the same as a woman; especially now the damage, to women, from Gender Identity Ideology, has become apparent.

Martine lays out his vision in his manifesto for a new “sexual revolution”. I find that an interesting choice of title because, from my vantage point, this is the perfect description. This a Men’s Sexual Rights movement masquerading as the civil rights issue of our time.

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In this book he argues that the categories of male and female lead to a sort of apartheid, which is how he categorises sex segregated spaces. Martine argues his proposals have emerged from feminist thinking. When a man like Rothblatt starts, approvingly, quoting feminism, he is either going distort it beyond recognition, or he is quoting Dick pandering, doormat, ”Feminism

I did a long thread, over on twitter, about Martine Rothblatt which you can find here:

@STILLTish Apartheid of Sex

A modest proposal for the Prison System.

What does this Martine’s vision have in store for women in prison? Martine argues that the justifications for sex segregated prisons are postulated on the basis of women’s “frailty”. He argues that these claims are suspect.

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Before I continue here are some facts about the U.K Prison estate. 👇These were published in 2020 and represent the data as of November 2019. Please be aware that, stark as the sex differences are, some of these offenders are males allowed to blame their crimes on women. Despite this, state-sanctioned, gaslighting, the male-inclusive, category of women is still a tiny proportion of the prison population. Women are less likely to be imprisoned for crimes against the person and only 2% are recorded as imprisoned for sex offending. Note that some of those “female” crimes are actually committed by males. Thanks to a recent court case we now know that there is an over-representation of male “women” incarcerated for sex offences. With such small numbers even one male added to this category of criminal offences can make a huge difference. Hence we have an entire programme on the BBC expressing horror at an 84% rise in female paedophiles. Are they female? Really? Shamefully the BBC chose not to question the data, Fairplay For Women did, see link below.

Female paedophiles rise by 84%?

He goes on to argue for his own solution to prison accommodation in a novel version of carceral feminism. Unbelievably he argues sex segregated, prisons have done nothing to stop rape in prisons. What he fails to mention is he is talking about male on male rape! (See below). Of course the Prison Industrial Complex, especially after the introduction of the profit motive, keeps costs low by providing low staff to prisoner ratios. I don’t disagree that the prison system fails to protect vulnerable, male, prisoners in the male estate. Prison reform campaigners have long argued single occupancy cells would reduce the numbers of men raped and murdered. Yet the solution selected has been to place, actual, and so called, “vulnerable” males, claiming a female identity, in the women’s estate. This has resulted in male sex offenders being housed with women, illustrating the naivete, or worse, nefariousness, of the architects of the policy. A system which denies women’s need for sex segregation and prioritises the needs of males, is a blatant example of institutional sexism.

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Even worse is that final sentence. Men are to be allowed to mix with women because it may help with their rehabilitation. This is woman, as support human, territory.

FARMER V BRENNAN

Here Martine quotes a court case from 1994 where a be-penised inmate, who Rothblatt calls “her”, sued the government to be moved out of the prison where he was held. Ruth Bader Ginsberg was also involved in that case, but didn’t act for the prisoner.

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I took a little detour to look at the Farmer case. Dee Farmer had a twenty year sentence for credit card fraud. They appear to have been moved to a higher security prison following further offences in the prison estate. They were a pre-operative “transsexual” in terms of being penis-intact. They had been transferred to the higher security prison because of a continued pattern of criminal offences. (No violent ones were reported or sex offences against women).

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Dee was moved to administrative (segregated) detention due to engaging in consensual sex, whilst HIV positive. Farmer was seeking a move to a lower security prison with less violent offenders. Ruth Bader-Ginsburg drew attention to other groups of vulnerable male offenders in the oral arguments. In my darkest (or more realistic?) moments I think the madness may end when other (Gay?) males claim discrimination because they are being treated less favourably. Maybe men will be listened to and effect some change? Policy makers and politicians are clearly comfortable with ignoring the negative impact on women.

They were not asking to be moved to the female estate having dropped an earlier petition as detailed below. Undoubtedly, were this case to be brought today, the claimant would have targetted a move to the female estate.

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BACK TO ROTHBLATT.

Now we come to some of the practicalities of this new utopia. Here Martine has to deal with the fact that women exist, as a sex class, and the fact it is the female people who get pregnant. How does he propose to get around this? We will forcibly implant contraceptives in the women and suppress sperm production in the men. The risk of pregnancy, he argues, can be remedied by a pharmaceutical solution which he is quite happy to be “mandatory”.

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Here he avoids the use of woman but reduces the inmates to their “genitalia”. The use of “accidental pregnancy” also avoids having to confront whether these pregnancies would be the result of rapes; a distinct possibility when female prisoners are confined with men. Nowhere does he address the fact that 99% of prison convictions for sexual offences are committed by the male sex or the fact the female population will be vastly outnumbered by the men.

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In summary, Martine constructs an argument which ignores the significance of biological sex in determining likely predators and prey. He leverages the clear vulnerabilities of a pre-op transsexuals. He conveniently ignores likely vulnerability of other young males; who may be gay and also deviate from accepted performances of masculinity. Worst of all he is prepared to expose women to serious risk because he cannot bear any division between his imaginary female identity and actual women. This is the misogyny peculiar to autogynephiles.

He then proposes the barbaric, and likely illegal, mandatory contraception for women. He shows little concern this is necessitated by the higher risk of rape. As an aside he claims that mixing the sexes may encourage lower rates of recidivism, a spurious claim given that you are providing sex offenders with captive prey. These men are not known for their restraint.

This book is from 1994. Had I encountered it at the time I would have dismissed this as merely the work of a deranged mind. Never could I have imagined it as a blueprint for the future. In 2021 it is eerily reminiscient of official Ministry of Justice policy and that should enrage us all.

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Incarcerated Paedophile & SRS

I have documented, in an earlier post, a small number of referrals to Gender Identity Clinics who openly admitted their motive for transition was paedophilia.  This blog is here: Survey of Referrals to a Gender 

This week two  more cases of Trans identified males have been convicted of downloading child pornography. Both were afforded female pronouns. I blogged about one yesterday Here:  #TheseAreNotOurCrimes

Today we had the outcome for another one. Media coverage here : Woman!

This weeks coverage made me return to this case. As usual, where available,  I include the judicial transcript of the case.  Here : Transcript

A quote here from the case:   “The Claimant, now aged 60, is a transgender woman who seeks a referral for NHS-funded gender reassignment surgery (“GRS”). She is a serving prisoner. In September 2006 she was convicted and sentenced, as a man, for making indecent photographs of children”   Bold added for emphasis.

The case was brought because the prisoner wishes to gain access to Sexual Reassignment Surgery (SRS), on the NHS, whilst incarcerated.

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The prospective patient is arguing ,the Tavistock are refusing surgery on the basis of a protocol which denies SRS to existing prisoners.  (Interestingly the judgement claims SRS is only made available to those with no hope of release!)

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The existence of any such protocol is hotly contested. We are then taken through the history of the claimants interactions with Gender identity specialists.  In this section we learn the offending history dates back to the 1980’s and the prisoner has a conviction for sexual assault, and grooming, of a young girl age 12.  The matter of gender Identity was raised in 2011.  5 years into an indeterminate sentence.

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Here the specialist expresses  concern  the prisoner may be drawn to further offending, even after SRS. The claimant admits this, initially, but then claims he would no longer need to offend, because he would not need to offend to  “vicariously experience womanhood”.  Below is a dose of common sense from Dr James Barrett.  Indeed. Women don’t typically perform our expected gender role by grooming and performing sex acts on 12 year old girls.

The fact that she had a history of sexual offences was a seriously complicating factor. People with gender dysphoria feel imprisoned in the wrong body, convinced they are a woman living in a man’s body. Women who are living in female bodies do not normally groom children, still less perform oral sexual acts on 12-year-old girls. It is unusual and it made it much harder to accept her history at face value.”

The withholding of SRS seems mostly related to the difficulty of having “Real Life Experience (RLE)  “living as a woman”.  This is one of the requirements prior to accessing irreversible surgery and there are a few cases which turn on what exactly this means.  How does anyone live as a woman?  Women are women by virtue of our biology . WE don’t all walk around performing sex stereotypes.  Few things irk me more than the idea that a few men can assess another man about how well he is “womanning“.  Only a fool would subcontract the definition of women to the opposite sex. There simply is no way to measure how to live as a woman  without relying on sex stereotypes.   Those same sex stereotypes women have been fleeing from/resisting for centuries.

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In the event various clinicians saw the prisoner. They commenced on a low dose of oestrogen and later the dose was increased.  Note that the letter below was sent to HMP Whatton, which is a man’s, Category C prison.  Note that the prisoner also appears to have embarked on an application for a Gender Recognition Certificate, from within prison. Dr Barrett declined to provide any supporting documentation.

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Here Dr Barret and Dr Lorimer both refer to the patients paraphilia, the cross-dressing and the fetishisation of the female experience, though it seems to only concern them when it is targeted at teenage girls.

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The first prisoner to obtain a GRC , from within prison, was a pre-operative male as I cover in this blog HOW LONG HAS THIS BEEN GOING ON?  This prisoner committed an attempted rape of a woman after being legally re-defined as a woman.  There is, to my knowledge, no process for rescinding a Gender Recognition Certificate, and certainly it was not done in the above case.

You can read another case which similarly  involved a male paedophile. This one had the idea that the Spice Girls were a template for womanhood.  Girl Power: The Spice of Life?

So there you have it.  Men re-defining women against our will.  Men defining men, as women, based on some projected sex stereotypes.  An admission of the co-existence of paraphilias and fetishisation of women.  Nobody was willing to outright refuse treatment so this person was given hormones and allowed to go on unsupervised day release, dressed as a woman.  I presume the real life experience involved using female facilities.

Male paedophile, dressed as a woman, accessing spaces which could well include teenage girls.  Nothing to see here? 058BBE65-88FE-487C-9E73-520D5B9DB7BBI now know who is responsible for the Mad Men series of images. Julian Vigo. Genius!

Sexual Reassignment Surgery: A prisoner’s appeal

This legal case centres on a prisoner who wished to access, NHS funded, Sexual Reassignment Surgery during a prison sentence.  Covered by The Times here: KK appeal for SRS

In anticipation of the general denial on this issue I include, as always, the official, judicial transcript. KK: Legal Challenge for SRS. 

There are a number of interesting aspects to this case. Firstly the recurrent appearance of the same clinicians whose advice is sought. There does seem to be quite a small number of  specialists in this field.  A feature of this case, once again, is the claimant’s complicating  history of sexual offences.  This is not unusual, in the cases which leave a trail in court paperwork.  Another recurrent theme is the vexed notion of what “living as a woman”  means. This resists definition and exercises the minds of our specialists, and the judiciary, far too little.  Here we are told the claimant is 60 years of age, was sentenced “as a man” and has been given an indefinite sentence for public protection (IPP).  We also discover that the bar for obtaining Genital Reassignment Surgery (GRS) is lower for a prisoner who will never be released than for those with the possibility of parole.  There is no rationale given here for this policy. D2F83B22-1269-46E4-A6E5-CDFBAA747780A3429FA6-FA00-4D58-B686-150A23CD22B6

The legal claim is made on a number of grounds. One of these is whether there exists a protocol which discriminates against prisoners wishing to access sexual reassignment surgery.  Another aspect of the case is a rarely articulated concern about regret, in post-operative transsexuals. Here  it is adduced as a factor in the, efusing the prisoner GRS. The existence of post-surgery regret is not denied. Instead, the argument hinges on  the lack of  peer reviewed research showing prisoners are at a higher risk of regret.  The Trust, for its part, denies there is any such protocol.

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Below is a reminder of the criteria to access genital surgery.  It can be done from age 17, mental health conditions are no bar they must merely be “controlled”, a patient is allowed to progress even if they are “unwilling” to undertake hormone treatment. Furthermore the prospective patient should not be judged on how they perform their gender. God forbid we assign arbitrary expectations to performative gender, it might make us suspect the entire ideology is underpinned by reductive, sexist stereotypes.  The absence of any externally verified way of measuring “Living as a Woman”  does, however, beg the question how is this being measured? How can you assess if a male person is really of the female gender? What does living in the female gender role mean?

How can you possibly assess whether this identity is being adopted correctly if you don’t have pre-conceived notions of what “living as a woman” entails?  Is it possible that this is a tad sexist?

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Another revealing admission is that many of those who claim the status of “woman” in fact have no bodily modification at all.  So living as a woman does not require anyone to be divested of that very male of appendages. One could be forgiven for assuming the penis part of the male anatomy which would give rise to dysphoric feelings. Yet it seems not to be the case. A large number retain their male anatomy. At the same time we, second class women, the biological kind, are expected to share our intimate spaces with the new, male-bodied, version of womankind.  We hear much of the comfort surgery can bring to sufferers of Gender Dsyphoria. Where is the consideration for the discomfort of ,unbepenised, women forced to share our intimate spaces?

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6F8EAE8D-9FB9-428F-8C9E-5F3248F87282Cue cries of “transphobia” for wishing to be free of all genders of penis when women are in intimate spaces.

The next excerpt from the case provides more information on the sexual offences committed by the prisoner.  Here we learn that the defendant begain offending in the 1980’s;  when he groomed and abused a young girl, at the  age of 12 . The defendant was, at that stage, 32 years of age.  The girl endured this for four years. He served just one year.  He was still sexually offending in 2006.

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The claimant is late to a belief they are really a woman. He remained trapped in a man’s body at age 51.  The claimant professes, to the therapist below, that his sexual offending may cease if he is allowed to transition. The therapist offers an alternative view. What if his attraction to the child images is related to him  having missed out on 51 years of being a girl  (WTF!). He may, in fact, be at a higher risk of offending after gender reassignment.  He then proceeds to amend his statement with the outrageous implication that he resorted to offending to “vicariously experience womanhood”.  Because nothing screams woman louder than sexually offending against a pubescent, female teen and downloading child porn!  Types furiously…

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Again there is a lot of evidence that males, who retain a sexual interest in females, and wish to transition, also have co-existing paraphilias.  But hey, what could possibly go wrong!

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Dr Lorimer is well aware that masochistic fantasies are not unusual.  A cursory acquaintance with sections of the community reveal a correlation with interests in BDSM.  Indeed here is a Masters Thesis about how sado-masochistic, role play helped one transwoman cement their identity.  Naturally they played the submissive role. BDSM & Transgender Identity

Cross-dressing usually has an erotic component but the prisoners states this was not the case for them. 6865DDD3-4017-402D-960E-957F7891BCFE Well he would wouldn’t he? Fetishising a female identity is pretty much the essence of the movement but I would say that wouldn’t I?

Fetishising sexual roles, with notions of submission and dominance, seems to be a core feature of how many males experience their female role.  Acting female in a male prison is vastly different from women’s material reality, as pointed out below:

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Here we find that the prisoner remains in a category C Male prison.  Since they have been “in role” for 10 years in a male prison it rather begs the question about lack of safety in the male estate.  Dr Barrett makes it clear they are not able to make a referral for a Gender Recognition Certificate.  As we found out from earlier cases there is no bar to obtaining a GRC, from within prison, even with convictions for sexual offences against women.  There are always other clinicians and a wealth of private providers that the prisoner can approach.  Good to know.  I was worried for a while.

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We soon learn that the prisoner has been moved to an open prison.  We are not told if this remains in the male estate.  The prisoner has, however, been granted accompanied and unaccompanied visits to the local town. This is to gain that all important “real life experience” of living as a woman, whatever that means!  This is a prelude to release.  Prisoner also has hormone therapy increased.   Below is another revealing statement that acknowledges that most denied of phenomena:  “detransition”.  When word gets out that Dr Lorimer has used this word will he be cancelled?

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The prisoners sexual offences are deemed to “complicate” the picture for our clinicians.  Further confirmation is provided below. Here we have a  prisoner presenting as  female, in the male estate, for 10 years!  Again Dr Barrett makes it clear the imprisonment of a patient is no bar to obtaining GRS and, additionally confirms female prisoners are being made to share accommodation with pre-op males.

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Yep Dr Barrett you bet the experience of living in the female role is artificial. I agree with you but probably for different reasons.  Late transitioners, with a history of sexual offences, are a red flag but you can’t say that can you? We must not undermine the notion of a man trapped in a woman’s body. #AcceptionWithoutException. Though Dr Barrett comes pretty close with this gem of a contribution about Women “living in female bodies!” (spoiler there is no other kind ). Yes! We tend not to groom female children and perform oral sex on them.

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So without wishing to labour the point the prisoner is denied.  No mention is made of the obvious reasons! You know the late -transitioning, sexual offence history and interest in child porn.  No.  The real issue that seems to justify the refusal is a failure to demonstrate real lived experience, as a woman, because prison is an artificial environment! Whilst a male cos-playing as a woman is not artificial, in any way!

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Case Dismissed.

 

Gender Recognition Certificates

As activists in the trans community work to remove the “onerous” burdens placed on the community to legally “transition” I became curious about  the legal cases in this area.  Far from excessive gatekeeping the act is explicitly designed to be “permissive”.  Has this permissiveness gone too far? It seems there is a low bar to be, legally, redefined as a woman. If you are not convinced have a scroll through my blogs.  If you don’t want to take my word for it, fine, I would not believe me either! In every piece I  link to the legal records.  You can bypass my commentary and go straight to the Transcript

In brief no surgery, attempted rape convictions, being incarcerated for paedophilia are no bar to claiming “womanhood”! Remember that when someone tells you they “live as a woman”.   Interrogate that phrase. Its ubiquitous and meaningless.  Can I, a white woman, say I “live as a black woman”? Nope. So why is one form of appropriation Ok and the other is racist?

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Reading through these cases the  co-morbidities of mental health conditions is striking, even as they are dismissed as “co-incidental”. This has implications for treatment pathways and women’s safety.   The recurrence of the same  “experts” also shows how  “gender identity specialists” are influencing the judiciary.  The case I cover in this blog  can be read, in full, here 👉: Ms Jay October 2018

 

Ms Jay versus the Secretary of State was instigated  after three, unsuccessful,  applications for a Gender Recognition Certificate. Presiding was a single judge, Lord Justice Baker. This case, as the Judge points out,  was the first under new rules governing appeals against a GRC refusal.  Below is some background about the complainant.

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The clip below  includes details of the short marriages, a self-reported feeling of being in the wrong gender, from puberty, and a secret history of “cross-dressing”. {Neophytes should search “autogynephelia” at this stage}

56D0738B-6226-4098-97A3-4DA8F712AE4EIn addition to marrying three times, and fathering 7 children, the appellant has a criminal history. In 2011 they were sentenced to  eight years in prison. The judge makes it clear that the appeal is not concerned with the criminal offences. Also the papers detailing the offence were not included and, moreover, that this was not relevant to the “wider public debate”.  00181E95-A7DF-4290-81F7-027218981330For the terminally curious. Here is a brief allusion to the offence so you can judge for yourself whether it is “relevant”  96BB040F-6E1C-4A9D-AAB8-5DD575F533F6

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Some of the reasons the panel resisted awarding a GRC were; inconsistencies in the information supplied, the reversion to male names during  “transition” and a Gender Identity specialist  casting doubt on the  diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. Ms Jay appears to have had more than one name change during the process and questions were raised about multiple addresses. Questions were also asked about misleading information supplied about the marriages and why redacted documents were submitted to the panel. Here we are told the applicant has lived full-time as a woman since December 2008. Yet driving licence and passport were renewed, in the male name, in 2013.  This a year after making  a statutory declaration, to a judge of their “intention to live full-time as female until death”.  (whatever living as a female means). The appellant had a name change in 2013 , whilst imprisoned, a  surname change and then another first name change in 2018. I hope someone is keeping track of all those names!  I echo the panel statement which questioned whether the applicant had something to hide!

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I sympathise with a panel presented with this applicant. A person whose Gender Dysphoria remitted enough to marry three times and father seven children. Someone who manages to  suppress their femininity sufficiently to amass explosives with intent to endanger life.  ( No! I hear your outrage. You are right. Women can also amass explosives with homicidal intent. Must learn to Lean In….Bad Feminist!)  Naturally, because of the name changes, I have found it impossible to trace the background to those offences. I can’t shed any light on the womanly way in which the crime was committed.  I am actually not clear whether tracing this history is even possible if a GRC holder does not reveal  past identities. It might even be an offence for me to try!

Warning!  Tone Switch..

Having justifiable concerns about the impact of these decisions, on women,  does not necessitate abandoning my humanity.  The clip below paints a sad picture of the claimant.  Nobody deserves to be vulnerable to sexual assault and I do wonder whether anyone is joining the dots between maladaptive coping mechanisms and prisoners undergoing transition.  However I would also love to hear from the trans-widows in this case. Those women are the really brave and stunning ones in all of these tales. They may tell a very different tale. 2F28F8FD-2106-45E7-97DB-507008963A49

The first application to the Gender Recognition panel appears to have commenced from within prison.  The medical evidence  submitted is from Dr James Barrett, a regular expert witness in these cases. He is generally very sympathetic to  Transgender Appellant’s.  His statement and comments are worth quoting in full. The history presented by the appellant is disputed and a concern focus on transition may be misdirected. A long history of psychiatric problems is noted. When even Dr Barrett thinks its a bad idea….its probably a bad idea!

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The prisoner is released in March 2015 and finds a new doctor. Unfortunately the release didn’t last long and they were recalled to prison in less than 3 months, Here a new doctor appears on the scene.  Dr Helen Webberley. Interestingly the panel note that they had not previously heard of Dr Webberley, in this field, which shows how recently they d£cid£d to cash in…oops I mean support such a vulnerable community:

29E1B514-D911-46AF-A6AB-6A3C75B641BAThe relationship with Webberley doesnt seem to persist and another doctor appears.  The next Doctor issues a report which is submitted, in redacted form, the the Gender Recognition Panel. This doctor again refers to Ms Jay’s personality disorder and maladaptive coping mechanisms but does diagnose Gender Dysphoria. The diagnosis leads to the recommended treatment (gender reassignment) to resolve the psychiatric issues.  Nobody  asks whether craving Gender  Reassignment is  another maladaptive coping mechanism. That would be transphobic, just in case  any of you are thinking that now!  Gender Dysphoria has been rebranded as an “identity” not a mental health issue, it’s now a slur to suggest this. As an aside this expert also recommends consideration is given to moving the prisoner to the female prison estate. In March 2016 the application for a GRC was turned down.   The doctor disappears from the case.

The prisoner is once again released in May 2016. Within 3 months he has found another doctor who provides this evidence Pay attention to the dates and the extensive treatment the patient has, we are told,  undertaken in three short months. ( As an aside Dr Pasterski appears in other cases I cover & most notably opposed a Local Education Authority when it raised concerns about 3 unrelated “trans kids” in a foster family).

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At this point the claimant becomes frustrated with the panel who have requested more clarification.  The claim “I have always been female” would seem to write three wives and 7 children out of history! 563B71A2-FCA2-4D20-841A-81EFDF8C68A7In August 2017 the Gender Recognition Panel again turned down the application. They expressed doubt about the credibility of the supporting evidence and , in particular that of Dr Pasteracki. They cast doubt on evidence supplied by the claimant.

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Inconsistent, unclear, vague, evasive. Nothing to see here

Some awareness of the condition of Autogynephilia, in the Transexual Community  would help the Judge here. Those who fit the profile for autogynephilia have a condition rooted in shame. Sufferers  tend to be steeped in denial. Here is a quote from  a Gender Identity Specialist:

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The Man Who Would Be Queen: Michael Bailey.

We have seen this in an earlier case I covered  GRC from Prison.  In that case a male claimed to be homosexual, his attempted rape was minimised on that basis. Yet, since leaving prison, they now self-identify as a lesbian.

Back to this case. In November 2017 the prisoner was again recalled to prison. The judge noted that the claimant was still in prison at the time of the hearing.

Thereafter yet another doctor enters the fray!  As the claimant is detained at her Majesty’s pleasure it is not clear how any assessments were carried out.  This one is in Sheffield.   Can’t change the opinion so change the Doctor!

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Now we get to the aim of the court case. It turns out they there is provision for a GRC to be issued by this one judge who can bypass the Gender Recognition Panel. 31988799-F7C6-4427-9E0A-A5B5095187B1The advocate for the claimant also shares this interesting nugget about GRC applications. Less than  5% are refused its designed to be “permissive not restrictive”.  766AD49B-81F0-439C-BF8F-7BDFA2AADA35 You have to admire the fancy footwork of the Legal team.   Ms McCann that the prisoner met the legal standard and that this Judge had the authority to  award the Gender Recognition Certificate himself.   Is it possible that some Judges are a tad vain and like to set precedents?  Does the advocate absolutely know this fact about male vanity? [Strike that: Snarky opinion! My bad]

Ms McCann reminds of that many of these decisions emanate from the  European Court of Human Rights. (If we Brexit do we lose Sexit? Sobering thought for a remainer such as myself!)

The right to self-determination includes “gender identification”.  Laywoman opinion: Your right to self-determination is not absolute. If it denies me the personal autonomy to recognise and relate to someone as the sex they are!

3C37B854-994F-46EE-B1FF-2F6A73CA3835To demand that I accede to your self-identity which may contradict my sex recognition skills springs from a totalitarian impulse. Chances are I will see your sex and if you walk behind me, late at night, I will react accordingly.

Furthermore can a person be “master” of his “ethnicity” as per the extract below? If I am objectively black can I identify out of racism? As a woman can I identify out of sexism?

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To cut a long story short the Judge was persuaded by these arguments.  He recognises that he is sitting alone, without assistance from a medical member of the panel but, in a Brave and Stunning decision, he decides to confer a Gender Recognition Certificate on Ms Jay, assuming that is still her name.   83E94CD1-4EA7-477D-B7AF-86ECC155A790

For those of you following this discussion just a reminder not to mention the elephant’s trunk in the room.  That would just be rude.

B8C6DD95-9648-494D-81E3-9FB1D3ACBEE3I will leave you with this question.   In making these determinations the Judge has to have regard to the individual’s Human Rights but also the wider rights of the Community.  Are we well served?

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Ministry of Justice: Updated Policy on caring for Transgender Prisoners.

This policy was revised and updated and published in August 2019. You can read the full policy 👉   Here  

This was revised after more than one high profile case of male rapists operating in the female estate.  There is no explicit reference to the cases, in the policy, though they do include  a warning about staff leaking information to the media.

A new policy is due to be published 31st October 2019 so I will revisit to note the amendments made.   I have also emailed the Ministry of Justice to ask if there is a specific policy on the care of female prisoners.  I have also asked  what protocols are in place for a female prisoner who is moved to the male estate, because they are deemed too dangerous for the women’s facilities.

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The policy exposes how far  the, legally protected, characteristic of sex has been eroded, by allowing anyone, regardless of biology, to declare they are a woman. The prison system is illustrative of just how far Gender Identity ideology is  embedded within our legislature and enshrined in public policy.

Below is a quote 👇 from James Morton, of the Scottish Trans Alliance, which shows that Female prisoners are the subjects of a  dangerous laboratory experiment.  James is listed as an author of the Scottish Prisons Policy which deals with Transgender Prisoners. As James is a lobbyist for Trans Rights there is only one group at the forefront of the policy.  Spoiler.  Its not Women.

‘We strategized – we strategized – that by working intensively with the Scottish Prison Service to support them to include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances, we would be able to ensure that all other public services should be able to do likewise’.

The above quote  is illustrative of a complete disregard for the female prison population;  one of the most vulnerable groups in our society.  Domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres and female prisons do seem to figure prominently in the targeted locations. Captive females are being targeted  for this new branch of Men’s rights activism.

The new MOJ policy starts out well.  At least it recognises  the need for balance between the protected characteristic of “sex” and “Gender Reassignment”. Specifically they refer to women’s prisons not, you will notice, men’s prisons.  They know any conflict impacts women. 

2FBB9A9F-6848-4764-ABCF-1870288BFD13The important legal issue here is that someone who has a Gender Recognition Certificate, is deemed to be “legally” of the opposite sex. Thus a Male to Female Transexual (MTF) or a Female to Male (FTM) is  deemed to be legally a woman/man, respectively. (Note: This does NOT mean that only post-operative transsexuals are able to be legally declared as the opposite sex. Gender Recognition Certificates (GRCs) have already been issued to male-bodied people).

The policy also includes this quote: F6F6AEC5-DC2C-4FC0-A7B7-60CD3608C1C3Unbeknown to, I would guess, 99% of women, the UK legal system has endorsed the idea of #LadyPenis.  Not one single women I have told about this, in real life, had any idea the state has declared that a male, complete with penis, can be legally defined as a woman. Once I had overcome their disbelief, they were, to a woman,  horrified. This is not a grass roots movement, its top down, elite led, and mandated by a political class who have been lobbied into submission. Crucially those who enact the law, and draft the guidance, will not be on the front line. They will not be tasked with enforcing the policy, in real life, or on the receiving end when, inevitably, it places women and children at risk.

The  Prisons policy has to operate on the basis of the law. The interpretation of the law is such that  a person who holds a GRC is , legally, woman/man and to be housed according to their “legal gender”.  (A lot of the debate uses Gender & Sex interchangeably. This is no accident. It obfuscates. Whenever you are reassured by a policy. Stop. Ask how they are defining gender, sex and woman. )AE657A7F-14E8-4BA1-A8CE-C4FA512B58BF

*A CCB is a Complex Case Board.

Since there are less than 5000 GRCs granted (last time I checked) this, on the surface, restricts the numbers.  However later in the policy it appears this is not quite so clear cut:

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This begs the question just what evidence is considered sufficient to define “gender” when legal sex cannot be easily determined?  Apparently staff can ask the prisoner’s permission to see a Gender Recognition Certificate or evidence that an application has been made.  However, the prisoner is not obliged to supply this information and can withhold it.  The policy also makes it clear that no search can be conducted to determine the sexual characteristics of the prisoner. This prisoner who does not produce  a GRC, or new birth certificate, will not have met the threshold for “full supporting confirmation” of their legal gender”.  The prison can, however, accept “strong supporting confirmation”. This turns out to be as follows:

86B34078-2767-4035-9B2C-F7EB1CD27C90The first and last categories are documents available to anyone on a “self-declared” basis.  Again how can one evidence “living as a woman”? Would we accept “living as a black man” or would we immediately see how offensive this is?  The middle one “appearance and mannerisms” postulates women as nothing more than mannequins. This  is grossly offensive to actual women but capitulates to wannabe women who think make-up maketh the woman.

Another interesting point made in the policy is the record keeping.  Any prisoner who is deemed to meet this very superficial set of criteria will be recorded as such.

BF37A69B-DE18-4946-8AE9-4B76E8CBFCB9Are crimes committed by men, who identify as women, recorded as male or female? If so how many self-identified women incarcerated are sex offenders? Do we have any way of tracking the risk these males present to the women inside, and outside, the prison?  I have more questions than answers. When we start to have a “puzzlng” increase in “female” sex offenders this will surely distort “evidence” based policy.  Risk assessments on the impact of male violence against women need accurate data. Individual women risk assess when in proximity to males. This is a survival strategy. Policy makers should ensure they have the data to do this on a macro scale.  Since we know there are significant sex based differentials in offence patterns eradicating records based on sex is a risky strategy.

I would also love to know why transgender status has any bearing on sentencing? See the excerpt below ⇓2F0677AE-E22E-45C5-A4A3-6FAF4018EEE0

Is Transgender status being treated as a mitigating factor?  I have seen articles where the judge has allowed an offender to walk free rather than subject them to  custodial sentence. Explicitly stating it was deemed to be  more onerous for a Trans prisoner. Here is one case in which the Judge does not impose a custodial sentence because the Sexual Offender Treatment Programmes are not geared to the Trans-community (which is true but letting the sex offender walk is no solution) : Transgender Sex Offender walks free

Writing such a policy would be challenging in the legal context even if undertaken by skeptical parties. Some of the framing is downright dishonest when contextualised to  female  offences against males and vice versa. Here we have exactly the same phraseology for the location of MTF and FTM.

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It must require a suspension of disbelief to write the second paragraph knowing full well a female, regardless of identity, is much more likely to be at risk not presenting a risk to  male prisoners.

A significant feature of the trans community is the need to be validated in the sex you wish you were born in.  Where a MTF demands that validation it can impacts on women’s safety by an obsessive need to be included in female spaces.  The more intimate the more validating.  For a female, with a male identity, this same need places them at risk.  Yet the law dictates this:

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I reported on another trans-identifying female earlier in this series who was sectioned in lieu of  being imprisoned. Inevitably they were the target of sexual “advances” when incarcerated, at their request, in the male estate.  FTM Legal Case

I also quote Frances Crook of the Howard League in the above case: 👇69F26840-7F7C-46AA-9A00-51C128807FF5

There are 80,000 male prisoners and 3000 female prisoners.  Men imprisoned for sexual offences are at 19% in the male estate.  Of the MTFs, held in the female estate,  41% are in for sexual offences. ↓

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Either we have a higher pattern of sexual offences within the Trans umbrella or we have a problem of opportunistic men gaming the system. The outcome for the women is the same whichever the motivation.

The above is from an article in the Spectator. (*The 0.04% figure is open to question as 128 out of the total female population is actually 4%. It is not known if this is because there are males , legally counted as female, in these figures). 

Read more here:

MOJ confirm Fair Play for Women’s work on Transgender Prisoners

All of the above confirms, to me, that the Prison service should revert to the original policy of housing female prisoner’s separately, from males,  and set up special accommodation for trans prisoners where deemed unsafe in the prison of their birth sex.

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I have omitted many aspects of this report. The self-reported “intersex” offenders does not stand up to any scrutiny.  Given the low incidence of Disorders of Sexual Development in the wider population it beggars belief that 7 out of 80 say they are “intersex. Once again it is deeply offensive to allow a medical condition to be claimed as an “identity”. Trans-activists have long co-opted this community to serve their own aims and Claire Graham covers this topic here :Intersex & LGBT

I also have not spent a huge amount of time on the how hamstrung the front line staff are. They can’t make a prisoner disclose their sex. They can’t conduct a search with the purpose of identifying the sex of their prisoner. They can’t use blood tests to determine if a prisoner is on a regime of hormones. They can’t tell female prisoners if they have a male incarcerated with them. For MTFs it is rare for non-celebrities to have  what is called “passing privilege”  so I imagine it is perfectly obvious to the women. Yet the prison officers commit a criminal offence if they share that information. The prisoner has the right to demand to be searched by someone of the same “”gender” so  female staff are also being disregarded.

Quite rightly the prison service is concerned that MTF Transgender people are at risk in the male estate.  What jars is that this risk is explicitly acknowledged and care taken to protect a “transwomen” in the male estate.  By contrast women in the female estate are not even allowed to know a male is housed within their estate.

Once again it is abundantly clear that the authorities have simply not consulted or listened to women.  We are here. We are raising our voices. This is NOT ok.

 

 

FTM Transgender: Legal Case

As part of my work looking at legal cases involving Transgender Individuals , with a particular focus on those incarcerated, I came across this case of a female.  The claimant is a Transgender Female who identifies as male. The case seems to have been brought because there was a belief that the clinicians were not proceeding to medicalise the Gender Identity at an appropriate speed.  Ruth Hunt {Then Stonewall CEO)  and Stephen Whittle {Transactivist key player in legislative change} gave statements. Full legal transcript of the case available here:

FTM Incarcerated 

The prisoner was convicted of the grievous bodily harm of a 12 year old boy and a further offence against a female partner.  They also have a plethora of complex mental health needs. As set out below:

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The Claimant now identifies as a “Transman” and has a number of “male pattern” offences to her name.  All of these things alienate support from women, looking out for females, in the judicial system.  As a FTM help from radical feminists, who reject “gender identity” politics,  will likely be rejected. As I read this case it shows that, whether they know it or not, they need their sex based rights even if they reject them.

Following their conviction the claimant was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and, in 2010, was diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria.

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Unusually the claimant has asked to be housed according to their “self-identified” gender.  Reading the case this seems to be prior to any treatment for the Gender Identity issues. I assumed that females would always prefer to be housed with other females, or at least not with men.  I think this is probably, largely the case, but , at least theoretically, not all FTMs.

Here are a few quotes from  a Reddit thread where females, who identify other than their sex, discuss whether they wish to be located in the male estate, in the event of incarceration. Here’s a sample of responses. Some replies are more reality based than others!

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Clearly this person committed serious criminal offences and was remanded in a secure mental health placement in recognition of significant co-morbidities. The existence of competing psychological issues is a recurring theme in these legal cases.

Given the significant co-morbidities It does beg the question as to why, with significant mental health issues, the claimant’s request to be housed with male offenders was accepted.  Why were they deemed “competent” to make such a decision? Why were they not protected from themself?

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Once housed in the male adult service, there was a predictable outcome: Male residents (plural) had made sexual advances to “him”.

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I have searched in vain for a clear statement that *any* transman has been incarcerated in the male (prison) estate.  Here are a couple of  mumsnet discussions on this topic which seems to have reached the same conclusion: like me they have been unable to locate any.

Transmen and prison location

This is important because if you look at policies re Transgender prisoners they seem to have forgotten all we know about which sex commits sexual offences (Males: 98% of the time) and who form the larger part of their victims. (Women). I think the reason this is so difficult to articulate, in policy documents, is that there is a clear conflict between “sex” and “gender identity”. Any talk of women, as a sex class, immediately denies “gender identity” . Invariably the ones who are being centred here in this dialogue are not the females, however they identify,  but the men who want to be women.

Females housed with males are at risk. And make no mistake, we are not just talking about post-operative transsexuals here.  Gender Recognition certificates have been given to attempted rapists, with their penis intact, as far back as 2006. The GRC does not mean men are required to be  surgically disarmed before being allowed to be defined as “legally female” . With or without “transition” we are expected to accept males, as a risk free presence,  in women’s spaces.  {Though, to be clear, as far as I am concerned, the defining characteristic is “sex” and women should be housed with biological women only}. 

Frances Crook of the Howard League (campaigning organisation for Prison Reform) sets out what our politicians are refusing to acknowledge.  There is a difference between the sexes, in terms of risk.  Unlike our cowardly political elite she dares say out loud,  what they surely know:

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For more on this topic its well worth reading Richard Garside. Consistently good on the issue of the protecting the rights of female prisoners: Transgender prisoners

So, to return to this case, we have already seen that their need to be affirmed in their  “gender identity” has triumphed over their own physical safety.  For someone in flight from their female sex I cannot think of anything more “gender dysphoria” triggering than to be sexually assaulted. This decision failed the claimant both as a woman and as a transgender male.

Differential diagnosis/Treatment Pathways.

It seems that the case became some sort of trans cause-celebre which hinged on the complexity of the competing diagnoses and some disagreement about how the Gender Identity issues should be treated.  Below is some of the “expert” testimony.

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One clinician is clearly wanting to stabilise the claimant before commencing treatment for the gender dysphoria. I assume she is referring to testosterone which seems sensible with such a volatile patient. The violent outbursts did not cease one they were incarcerated:

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Again I do wonder if there is enough research on the impact of Testosterone on, particularly already violent, females.  This research showed male pattern offending rates remained in transgender MTF (Male to Female) and that FTM approached Male rates of offending.  Long term follow up

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The clinician also warned that any move to sexual reassignment surgery may trigger violence which seemed to suggest a cautious approach was wise. Seems there was general acceptance of the co-morbid conditions by a number of the clinicians involved in the claimant’s care.

It seems the legal case itself had arisen because of the conflict between the clinicians dealing with the patient, one might argue “holistically”, and the Gender Identity Specialists.  Here we have Dr James Barrett; who seems to be the go-to expert in many of these cases. . I do not share his confidence that the psychiatric illness is a mere co-incidence.  Yes there is likely a link between the Gender Dysphoria and the mental health, as he states,  but I suspect Dr Barrett does not see that link in quite the same way as I do.

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Clearly there was a view that the claimant was being let down by not having expedited treatment for their “gender dysphoria”. One group of clinicians seem to be erring on the side of caution whilst other “experts” see the failure to commence treatment as the issue.

Others are clear that Gender Dysphoria, to them , is a simple health problem that needs treatment and not a mental health issue:

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The judge in this case seems uncharacteristically resistant to the advocacy of some of the big players in the trans-political sphere.  Here she  opines on the contributions of some big names.  This had to hurt! Stephen Whittle and Ruth Hunt made statements the judge decided were of “no relevance”.

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She was also very critical that the case had been brought at all and made specific reference to the considerable costs incurred.

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Finally she concluded that she did not think the case was necessary.  Reading between the lines she understood this was to “highlight the importance of transgender issues” and likely this was intended to have wider application than in this individual case. C14767A4-C4A7-4EB3-AFFA-49F78D47C0A1

The judge rejected the case for a judicial review of a clinical judgement.

Here we have someone who seems to be a lesbian, from a fractured childhood and periods in state care.  All of these things are likely to generate “identity” issues.  Add in all the mental health issues and it seems beyond madness to see the “Gender Dysphoria” in isolation from the other conditions.

Female judge. Took someone from twitter (@KirstenYounger)  to point out I had used male pronouns, in the first draft, for the Judge. Mea culpa. The maximum kind.

I spent so much time agonising about pronouns for the FTM claimant, to avoid being kicked off WordPress,  I missed the important stuff, for women.

Worth reading this Pronouns Rohypnol

I hope whatever path this individual took it turned out well.  I fear it won’t /didn’t

 

 

 

 

 

Girl Power: The Spice of Life?

Preferred Pronouns.  A harmless courtesy?

During my trawl through legal cases involving Transgender Prisoners I came across this case:

Paedophile: Victim and Perpetrator

The prisoner had committed sexual offences against young boys.  Their offences started whilst young and continued to adulthood.  The prisoner had also been a victim of childhood sexual abuse.  Makes for a pretty grim catalogue of offences.

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It is hard to read without reflecting on the damage done to young males, by early sexual contact, whether by direct force or grooming. I did wonder  how this shapes their attitude to their own bodies, warps their boundaries and perpetuates a cycle of abuse. [Note that many CSA survivors do not go on to become abusers.  Female survivors , in particular, quite rightly baulk at the inference and maybe more likely to internalise the consequences in self-harm. Once again we find sex matters.]

Another startling finding is the seemingly higher rates of CSA transitioners. Are they trying to escape the physical shell in which their abuse took place?

Child Sexual Abuse and Transgender Identity

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From the study 👆

For the purposes of this blog, however, my focus is on how the judicial system deals with the needs of these prisoners, primarily the impact on women. Especially when this places males in the female estate. All prisons have policies which require them to at least consider housing males according to their “gender identity”.

The case opens with the kind of statement I am becoming accustomed to:

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The prisoner was “born a man” and “remains physically a man” yet the case will use female pronouns, out of respect. The legal system is using she for a male, child sex offender. Let that sink in!  Furthermore, as the case makes clear, this is not someone with a Gender Recognition Certificate.  (A  GRC confers the  “legal fiction” that a male is female). What is apparent is the  legal system already extends this “recognition” prior to any assessment by a Gender Recognition Panel.  Polite female pronouns for a male sex offender are a dis-courtesy to women across the land but, hey, we are only women. Gillian Flynn had it right when she reflected on the me too movement:

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Well worth taking a break, at this point, to read this post about the ubiquitous use of female pronouns, to describe males, and the impact on our cognitive abilities.  This was posted on mumsnet and earned the poster a 7 day ban! 👇

Pronouns are Rohypnol

Includes this clip:CC60D63A-B850-4D49-ACDE-04EEAC65E72B

Now the law is using this linguistic rohypnol of “preferred pronouns”. Even for male sex offenders who have committed sexual offences against children, do not have a GRC and have not medically “transitioned”.  The overwhelming perpetrators of crimes of a sexual and violent nature are males, so in whose interests is this linguistic shift? It is NOT in the interests of the female sex to obscure the sex of the perpetrators of sexual violence.

The offender , in this case, had already been tried and imprisoned for the sexual offences committed. However, what if the preferred pronouns were “she” at the time of the offence?  Would the young boys he victimised have been admonished for using “he”?   We have already seen that Maria McLachlan was legally compelled to use female pronouns for her attacker.  In addition, despite the perpetrator being found guilty, her use of male pronouns was actually used to reduce any compensation that may have been due.  In her own words :  Maria McLachlan: Trial

Sexual Offender Therapeutic Treatment Programmes.

To return to the case in hand.  These are offences that no woman or girl could have physically committed. The number of females imprisoned for sexual offences against children is statistically insignificant.

There are lots of interesting points, in this case,  about parole hearings, indeterminate sentencing and whether the prison system is equipped to deal with transgender sex offenders. Those remain issues that require resolution.  I remain steadfast on the principal that women are entitled to single sex spaces. However, even were I to set that aside, women’s prisons are not sufficiently experienced, or sufficiently resourced, to deal with male sex offenders. Indeed if you read the case the male prison seems similarly unable to identify the correct risk reduction programme for such a prisoner.

Another salient point  is the absence of a Gender Recognition Certificate proves no barrier to anyone  “self-identifying” as Transgender. This, in turn, allows them to  invoke the legally protected characteristic of “Gender Re-assignment”.  If , like me, you assumed that a GRC must be obtained, to be covered by this legal protection, the law is not operating in this way. These are some of the legal arguments which make it clear the case was heard on the basis that the prisoner was entitled to be legally protected by the characteristic of “Gender Reassignment”.  No mention of even hormone treatment and definitely no surgery, at this point.

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No wonder every political party is signing up to getting “Self-Id” specifically enshrined, in law, they know we have already let the Fox in with the hens!

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A year ago I may have expressed less concern about Homosexual transgender offenders as a risk to women.  However, if you read this earlier case on my blog   Male Sex Offender in Female Prison   , you will see that this is no guarantee of female safety; not even protection from sexual assault.

The prisoner, who is the subject of this blog, was housed in the male estate. A same sex attracted male would obviously have less incentive to petition to be moved to the female estate. There is only one reference to this preference. Here:👇

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HMP Send is a female therapeutic community.  The prisoner expressed fear at being in a male sex offender treatment programme (SOTP) and this fear was taken seriously.  Nowhere is there any reference to the fears of females at HMP Send, to have a (fully-intact) male in their treatment programme. In the end , despite  more than one overture, this request was turned down.  In my view this should simply not have been considered.  A fear of males is not exclusive to the Transgender community. Cannot quite believe I have to actually state this in 2019.  Female prisoners have an over-representation of women who have been abused at the hands of men.  The Prison policy should act on the legally protected characteristic of sex.  It simply should rule out housing a male, sex offender or not, with women. Neither should there be any compulsion to admit one to a female therapeutic programme.

Note also, in the above clip, the prisoner reports they are three months away from being granted a Gender Recognition Certificate.  I have no way of verifying this. However, thus far there are no details of any hormone treatment and certainly no surgery has taken place.  So it would seem being imprisoned for child sexual abuse, and handed an indefinite sentence to protect the public, is not an automatic bar to applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate. Whilst activists are campaigning to relax the requirements for a GRC  I ask why the requirements not made even more stringent? Or, indeed, why we have accepted them at all.  If the GRC is supposed to reassure women then it is transparently not worth the paper it is written on.

There are safeguarding implications and this study raised a concern. 👇

Motives for Transition.

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Predators will always take the path of least resistance. Safeguarding principles tell us to look at where these weak links are because this is where you will find predators.

Its OK if they are homosexual.

A feature of this “debate” , we fought to have,   is institutionalised sexism which fails to understand the nature, and extent, of sexual offences against women.  In my earlier blog, linked above, I quote  the motivation for the attempted rape of a woman.  It was a male-attracted offender. His motivation for a sexual attack against a women was rage.  Narcissistic rage because she was a woman this  was the status the male wished for himself.  Narcissistic tendencies are frequently referenced in respect of this prisoner:

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References to this prisoner’s narcissism and fragile self-image recur in the psychiatric assessments quoted.  What bigger threat to your self-image than to present yourself as “female” and not be accepted, as such, by actual females.  So much of the rage directed at women, from trans activists, seems driven by a recognition of this simple fact. The mere existence of natural women triggers a malevolent response. It seems simply being is interpreted as a threat and an act of confrontation. How dare we  just exist as women. 

There are so many layers to this societal shift that it is difficult  to maintain focus on one aspect.  In this case we have a relatively young male with a history of sexual offending from their early teens.  He has been convicted of grooming and manipulating young males, for his own sexual gratification.  The case indicates that this young man had also been sexually abused, prior to becoming a child sex offender himself.  They have a history of self-harm, and vengeful behaviour, when their self-image is threatened . A clinician has diagnosed Narcissist Personality disorder.  During their time in prison they adopted a female identity which would seem to add another layer of vulnerability to a fragile personality.  We have already seen that the prisoner acts out against staff and prisoners when threatened. The Sexual Offender Treatment plans are not deemed suitable for the prisoner and finding a suitable therapeutic approach has been problematic. Treatment has therefore been significantly delayed.  This has further rebounded on the prisoner because, without a risk reduction programme, they remain indefinitely detained. There is also a pending police investigation because the prisoner alleges a rape in the male estate. (At the time of this case).  All of these things can be true.  They are not, however, issues that can, or should, be resolved by handing over the problem to female prisoners and staff.

Placing prisoners with this profile (below)  in the female estate forces women to co-habit with a high risk , narcissistic male, with a fragile sense of self and a need to control and dominate the environment in which they are based.  If they are doing this in the male estate how much more vulnerable are the women going to be?  How is putting a self-identified “woman”, who will not be read as “female”,  in with women, going to help their self-image? What form might the “vengeful schemas” take on the women who don’t demonstrate, sufficient, acceptance of that “identity”?

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How does a male feel like a woman?

This is a recurrent question to which it is difficult, to impossible, to achieve a coherent answer.  This subject is littered with people who speak of “living as a woman” or “adopting a female role” but what does that mean?  There is no answer ,I have seen, that doesn’t resort to circular reasoning and sexist stereotypes.  This prisoner is no different.  Their version of woman hood, and no I am not kidding, is as defined by the Spice Girls.  This is a male fantasy about what makes a woman. These males display a unique version of mysogyny

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Don’t let a man tell you, you can’t do something because you are a girl! 

Not for the first time I quote Miranda Yardley who coined the term “refugees from masculinity”.  I agree.  Refugees from masculinity exist.  It is still not the job of the female sex to run the Refugee camps. Reject the mantle of maleness. De-programme your male socialisation.  You have my full support in this. Telling women  their biological reality  can be colonised and you lost me.

Girl Power was an empty slogan revolving around the mythical empowerment of  hyper-sexualised women.  This 👇

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I don’t accept  a man can tell me, a woman, that he, a man, has any right to pontificate on what makes a woman Less #GirlsLikeUs and more #JustWomen.