Trans prisoners

 We are now putting some male prisoners in women’s prisons. Men who may have raped and murdered women. That these men wish they were women doesn’t alter reality – they are men. And I’m not going to obfuscate that reality in the name of being kind or polite. That time has long passed.

To be honest, I should have seen this coming. When the Prison Rules were updated in 1999 (the first since update since 1964) the absolute prohibition against holding men and women in the same facilities was modified from “shall not” to “shall usually not”. One small word to blow a hole through what was long established good practice. No one noticed. I did, but couldn’t make any sense of it. What, who or why this change happened is a complete mystery. But there it is, opening the door to the current febrile situation.

The place of transwomen – men who portray themselves as women – in the prison society is complicated. Prisons are not a monoculture; each prison, each wing, may have its own cultural rules and standards; equally, short term prisoners and long term prisoners tend to have quite different outlooks and cultures.

Trans identifying men – TiM- may face ridicule, or support. It very much depends on the culture of their wing. Short-termers tend to be more rambunctious and judgemental. Whereas amongst Lifers and long-termers, no one ever gave much of a care about TiM. After all when you’ve eaten your parents, you tend to be less judgemental of others. Amongst long-termers there were famous TiM. They were cared for and even prized for bringing some pseudo-femininity into a hyper-masculine environment.

This is decidedly not to claim that TiM had a universally benign experience. Very often this was related to their stage of transition. Presenting as feminine was one thing. Actually having breasts in a male prison is another. Such prisoners were viewed as being at risk of sexual assault.

It was standard practice to place such TiM in the hospital wing, tucked away from the main prison. This is problematic. Prisoners in the hospital were often mentally ill and created a very intense disruptive atmosphere. Try sleeping when the schizophrenic next door is screaming. The daily life of TiMs in the hospital wing was hugely restricted, usually being locked up for 23 hours a day. They had no access to the activities that prisoners on the main wings could indulge in, such as workshops, gym, education and just regular old socialising with other prisoners.

This isolation is obviously unfair and adds an extra punitive layer onto trans prisoners. That a different approach is required is wholly reasonable. Various suggestions have been offered, such as a dedicated prison for TiM. This is ridiculously impractical, there are far too few. A separate wing is more reasonable. Even so, daily activities would be confined to that wing, whereas education and workshops are communal resources shared by the whole prison and remain out of reach.

There seems to be no perfect solution as to how to safely hold men who believe they are women in the males estate. Some compromises will always be required in order to maintain good order. Such is the nature of prison.

The solution that ‘trans rights activists’ advocate for is to place these men in women’s prisons. There are two arguments made for this.

Firstly, they claim that trans identifying men are ACTUAL women. I’m not even going to discuss this denial of human biology for a single second. Its simply bizarre and can be dismissed out of hand. Men cannot ever be women.

The second, more rational, argument is that trans identifying men would be safer in women’s prisons. Which is undoubtedly true. As putting a piranha in a tank of goldfish is safer for the piranha. What I don’t hear in the discussion is the effect on women prisoners.

This is infuriating narcissism. Peddled by those who have not even consulted women prisoners. I can never explain to you the nature of prison culture and how vulnerable it can be to disturbance. A woman prisoner on a male wing would shatter all norms. It would be the act of a madman to do so.

To place a male prisoner amongst women is to change the nature of the whole institution, disrupting its culture and completely destroys women’s dignity and privacy. Given that trans identifying men are over represented in sex offender statistics, there is also the very obvious

issue of placing rapists amongst women. Its so obvious its beneath discussion.

Women prisoners have had to share their spaces with rapists. That detail aside…Women prisoners suddenly have to give thought to how they dress, talk, shower, undress… The whole nature of how these women act must change. Worse, they must do so under threat of punishment from the prison management. If they refuse to treat and address these men as their adopted female persona, they lose privileges. Privileges like money to phone home and family visits. Things only prison can call “privileges”. These women are being FORCED to pretend that a man is an actual woman.

Whilst the position of trans identifying men in male prisons can be difficult, transferring that difficulty onto women is iniquitous in the extreme. Women prisoners are not a solution to a man’s problems.

Ben Gunn is “one of Britain’s best known prisoners…he constantly questions authority and exposes the futility of the system” The Times. Pleading guilty to the murder of a friend when he was 14 years old, Ben has since renounced violence and consistently fought for the recognition of the inherent dignity of all human beings. As a result of speaking truth to power, Ben has served far longer than the recommended 10 years, leading Education Secretary Michael Gove to argue that Ben “has been punished excessively for a crime committed as a child”, and Lord Ramsbotham to state that “It is expensive and unnecessary to keep Ben Gunn in prison”.