Mick Hartley

More on male criminals who claim to be women when it comes to serving their prison time. After Illinois – Scotland.

Female prisoners in Scottish jails have told how transgender inmates serving sentences alongside them switched back to their male birth gender after being released.

The disclosure — in a study published in the British Journal of Criminology — has raised fresh concerns about self-identification of gender posing a risk to women’s safety as first minister Nicola Sturgeon prepares to press ahead with gender recognition legislation this year….

Maycock’s report did identify fears among female inmates of predatory behaviour by some trans prisoners, with one suggesting “the transitions of transgender people might be an attempt by paedophiles or other sex offenders to access cis-women in the female prison estate”.

Another woman told of a transwoman prisoner in her work party whose views “were totally wrong. He wanted to be in this hall because he wanted to have sex with loads of lassies.”

Well of course. Why wouldn't he? The system is clearly wide open to exploitation – so predatory men exploit it. What did they expect?

In response to a freedom of information request, the SPS confirmed that one transgender woman housed within the women’s estate was on the sex offenders register as a result of a previous offence unrelated to the offence for which they were currently being held.

It also confirmed that no one currently in SPS custody had made the service aware that they were in possession of a gender recognition certificate confirming their acquired gender.

Another recent FoI request revealed that 12 trans prisoners convicted of violence or sexual crimes had been accommodated in Scottish women’s jails within the past 18 months. Only one had transitioned fully while the others had self-identified as female.

Maycock, who worked for the Scottish Prison Service when he undertook the research at four Scottish prisons, said several of the 15 female prisoners he interviewed spoke of transgender people who had transitioned in custody and reverted to their birth gender following release.

While some believed prisoners born male had switched for sexual opportunities, there was also a view that some had abused the system to get an easier time in jail.

Marion Calder of the campaign group For Women Scotland said the findings raised new questions about the Scottish government’s gender reforms agenda. “It has repeatedly said it will uphold the rights and protections that women currently have to single-sex spaces under the Equality Act, and yet we can see quite clearly that in practice it is busy undermining them in the most egregious way.

“It is a cruel and unusual punishment when failing to pay your TV licence can result in being forced to share a shower with a male sex offender. Single-sex prisons need to be reinstated immediately; the prison service has already shown it is capable of safely housing men, however they identify, in the male estate.”

Dr Kate Coleman, director of Keep Prisons Single Sex, said: “When you consider that very many women in prison have a history of violent and sexual abuse at the hands of men, to force them to share accommodation with prisoners who they could reasonably recognise as male is outrageous.”

One prisoner said she feared the trans prisoners she had known had conned the SPS. She said: “The last one to get out, back living as a man. The one before that got out, back living as a man.

“While he was in the hall, [he] was telling people, I’m stopping taking my medication because I can’t [become erect]. I’ve not a problem living with trans people; it’s living with people who are manipulating the system and pretending to be trans.”

Another said of another trans prisoner: “I feel like it was a bit of an act. Because she had a beard and she didn’t try. She basically had a short back and sides and . . . she just looked awful. And she didn’t try to cover up her ‘down belows’. She just didn’t try.”…

On Christmas Eve, Scotland’s prison population stood at 7,435, with only 259 listed as women. A total of 15 prisoners were trans, 12 of them trans women and three trans men. It is understood that all are currently held in female units as previous experience of trans men in the male estate had caused tensions.

Tensions in the male prisons? Dear me, that's unforgivable. Stick them in the women's prison then, where tensions, and trivial stuff like sexual assault, can happily be ignored.