Mick Hartley

Well isn't that just wonderful:

It is lawful for transgender women to be housed in female jails in England and Wales, the High Court has ruled.

A female prisoner, known as FDJ, had challenged the Ministry of Justice over aspects of the policy.

She claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a trans prisoner but the MoJ did not say whether it accepted this alleged incident had taken place.

The judge ruled barring all trans women from female prisons would ignore their right to live as their chosen gender.

Women's prisons can house inmates who were born male but identify as female, regardless of whether they have gone through any physical transformation or have obtained a gender recognition certificate.

The MoJ argued the policy pursued a legitimate aim, including "facilitating the rights of transgender people to live in and as their acquired gender (and) protecting transgender people's mental and physical health".

The claimant in the case, FDJ, had said she was sexually assaulted in prison in 2017 by a trans woman with a gender recognition certificate (GRC). The woman had convictions for serious sexual offences.

Her lawyers argued that placing transgender women in the female prisons exposed others to higher risk, citing a claim that transgender inmates were five times more likely than non-transgender prisoners to commit a sexual assault on a non-transgender prisoner.

But no matter. The rights of trans women are more important than any silly quibbles about women feeling unsafe or being assaulted.

The judge said he "fully understood" the concerns of FDJ, and that women prisoners "may suffer fear and acute anxiety" if housed with a transgender woman who has male genitalia.

But he added that the rights of transgender women prisoners must also be considered.

And be considered more important.

Of course no man would cynically claim to be a woman just so that he could be housed in a woman's jail. That could never happen.