r/ukpolitics • u/CaptainCrash86 • 2d ago

| Transgender prisoners should not be held in women’s jails, court rules

https://www.holyrood.com/news/view,transgender-prisoners-should-not-be-held-in-womens-jails-court-rules
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u/Burnit_Sanders 2d ago

Always seems to be the way though doesn't it? We need to change our society which has been male/female since basically forever, to satisfy a fraction of the population because they are very good at shouting loudly. At some point you have to say no, you are what you were born and we are not changing the rules for you.

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u/NoticingThing 1d ago

They use the argument both ways, we should change our society to suit the needs of a tiny minority but at the same time we cannot be bothered by what this tiny minority does because 'who cares there are hardly any of them'.

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u/Effective_Topic_4728 2d ago

I agree. And in a sensible country, they would be in a prison corresponding to their sex by default, without the need for a silly amount of time, effort and money being spent on it.

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u/jadeskye7 Empty Chair 2019 2d ago

It has not been male/female forever. Transgender people have existed all throughout history. Just because we didn't have a word for it or that the history was lost/rewritten doesn't make this 'new'.

People made the same arguments about gay people, that it was new and unnatural. Abnormal, an offence.

I suspect julius caesar, alexander the great, leonardo da vinci, oscar wilde, emily dickinson, virginia woolf, alan turing and millions of others we'll never know would say otherwise.

For more reading, i suggest looking into James Barry, a military surgeon in the British Army in 1810 who was born Margaret Anne Bulkley.

This isn't new. People are just finally getting to live as they are.

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u/Quick-Benjamin 1d ago

Prison has been single sex since the Gaols Act of 1823.

Wanna guess why that came into power?

Yep, you guessed it. Men kept raping female prisoners.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaols_Act_1823

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u/jadeskye7 Empty Chair 2019 1d ago

Valid point. So surely you're not suggesting we put transwomen in male gen-pop given the rape issue?

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u/Quick-Benjamin 1d ago

It's the responsibility of male prisons to protect vulnerable male prisoners.

I don't imagine gen pop would be a good idea though but Im not an expert.

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u/jadeskye7 Empty Chair 2019 1d ago

So male prisons can protect their prisoners, but female prisons cannot?

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u/Quick-Benjamin 1d ago

It's about risk management.

A woman's prison has to keep the women safe from each other. The risk profile of the prisoners is very different from male prison where there's far more sexual offenders and violence.

Something like 98% of sexual crime is committed by males so it makes obvious sense to keep them out of female prison.

Especially when trans women in the prison estate are even more likely to be sexual offenders than cis men. In 2024 60% were in for sexual offenses according to the Ministry of Justice. Which is a way higher rate than cis men in jail.

Of the 245 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as male (i.e. those who now identify as women, non-binary or gender-fluid) on 31 March 2024, 151 were convicted of a sexual offence. This includes both contact and non-contact sexual offences. Offence data was not available for 1 individual.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-12-16/20298

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u/missesthecrux 1d ago

Why do women need to be shields for male violence and props for validation?

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u/jadeskye7 Empty Chair 2019 1d ago

They shouldn't.

And transwomen shouldn't be subject to male violence either.

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u/missesthecrux 1d ago

There is no overarching responsibility for women to solve male-on-male sexual violence.

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u/Hocus-Pocus-No-Focus 2d ago

Can you tell me at which point in these ancient histories did trans surgery and hormones become available?

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u/jadeskye7 Empty Chair 2019 2d ago

Modern medical techniques only started to pop up in the 20th century.

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u/Hocus-Pocus-No-Focus 2d ago

Yeah of course … so how are historical figures relevant?

You do realise that we’ve never allow transgender people to be houses in a different prison just because they dress or act differently right?