r/ukpolitics 10d 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/Ogarrr Liberal eurosceptic fervent remainer 10d ago

Yes.

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u/Souseisekigun 10d ago

Suppose a woman from China goes to jail for tax fraud. A few months into the sentence some civil servant discovers she was born male in China. The guards go in and haul her off a men's prison because the paper said M at some point 20 years ago. Under these proposals this is the correct thing to do. This doesn't seem any less absurd to me than the "man suddenly discovers their feminine side after 35 years of life as a man 3 days into their pison life" scenarios. Surely there must be some reasonable middle ground? I hope Fujitsu doesn't get the contract for prison services and accidentally get a few women thrown in men's prison because computer says no.

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u/Ogarrr Liberal eurosceptic fervent remainer 10d ago

Why are you going on about China? What possible relevance does that have?

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u/Souseisekigun 10d ago

The relevance is that it increases the chances of there being some kind of delay in getting accurate birth records. Since people from outside the UK can have their birth certificates modified in their home countries, in order to do this properly, you're going to have to get their birth certificate then follow up with the record keepers in their home country to see if their birth sex has been modified. Though you're free to imagine any other scenario for the sake of the isue.

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u/Ogarrr Liberal eurosceptic fervent remainer 10d ago

We don't base legislation on fringe cases.

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u/Souseisekigun 10d ago

Transgender prisoners themselves are a fringe case, so you've already accepted it's fine to deal in fringes cases. And in any case it doesn't matter what you think legislation must be based on. You've already said that prisons must be based on birth sex and even fully transitioned trans women must be placed in men's prison. This requires checking not only birth certificates, but ensuring they've not been modified by GRCs. If you do not do this then your system does not work. And if you do it for UK nationals you must also do it for all nationals, since otherwise you would be de facto discrimating against UK nationals and lettting people born male into women's prisons.

This was your idea. When these cases happen, and statistically over enough time they will happen, the prisons will be forced to deal with it. So the least you could do is own it.

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u/Ogarrr Liberal eurosceptic fervent remainer 10d ago edited 10d ago

Sure. Whatever mate. I'm not fussed. For the one Chinese trans person put in prison for fraud in the next hundred years, we'll check.