I must love punching beehives, tasty tasty bees.

It's an uncomfortable reversal of a norm. We wouldn't expect people to call white people Black because they want to be Black — AmadeusD

Also yeah. It relates to your reference to passing as well, you don't have to think about it at all if a trans person passes. I've made plenty of slips with trans people who don't look sufficiently like I expect their gender to look. If I've not spent much time with them anyway.

Can you show me what the source you have for being "four times more likely" is? — fdrake

It's the UK prison stats. This isn't as good, but another source

Trans women:

Total Pop: 48,000 est.
In prison: 0.27%
For sex crime: 0.16%

Non trans males:

Total Pop: 32,900,000 est.
In prison: 68,548 =0.21%
For sex crime: 12,611 =0.04%

% of Prison pop: 18.4%

NB: unfortunately, this is something I had in a draft email. my work serve wont let me open the link to add the raw numbers for trans women. Sorry, as that's absolutely fucking crucial LOL. I take it you can look at those numbers and verify though.

I should also note, looking at this, I calibrate a full 50% for sex crimes which are to do with SW and the like. It is still then 100% higher among trans women.

It wasn't intended that way. — fdrake

Yeah, i definitely assumed not, to be clear.

if all that matters were odds, women who are sex offenders against women should also be excluded from women's prisons — fdrake

No. The odds are ever in the females favour for sexual assault. This is true in and out of prison. This doesn't ignore your point. If women are already being assaulted by females then absolutely fuck no to introducing males who are more likely to assault, and are more likely to cause lasting damage or to kill. These are not controversial facets of male-ness. You are not wrong, but you are not concluding something reasonable, imo.

"no, in fact there was no evidence in the paper that trans women are uniquely risky" — fdrake

Because that isn't the fucking claim. They are at least as risky as non-trans men which the Swedish paper clearly shows, in no uncertain terms. I have relied on other sources for the unique risk transwomen present.

This means that for the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality.

Have you read the paper? This is patently untrue and clear attempt to avoid the vitriol of trans activists who routinely harass and attempt to 'cancel' anyone saying anything they don't like in the lit
Another (damningly, the school was pinged for more than half a million pounds for not protecting Kathleen.
Another which went the same way.

There is a very, very good reason to do what those authors did. It doesn't change what's in the paper, and it doesn't change the very real fact that male are at a higher propensity for violence, including sexual violence. I'm not sure how much Twitter you've seen either, but www.terfisaslur.com is a nice little capsule of what goes on there, and routinely.

Given that plenty of trans figures (Blaire White, Debbie Hayton, Buck Angel, Brandy Nitt and a few others, at the least given this is off-top) agree with what I'm saying, and think the position put forward on the other side is the specific reason the trans community faces backlash that might otherwise be considered unreasonable (i exclude here actual bigotry, on my own terms). I don't know that that's true, but if the community itself, in some significant proportion notices this (my personal trans friends do, also) then it cannot be hte case that this is some inarguable situation where we have to just do as were told (which is the postion).
I don't have to call anyone anything they demand of me. Simple. It might be 'decent'. but its not required and there should never be policies to that effect.
Similarly, there should never, ever be policies which allow males to override the wishes of females.

that — fdrake

I have to assume this applies to the second potential statement there, about saying 'fuck no'.

They're saying it because they are male. Nothing else. They do not need to justify that further.

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're getting at here. Trans people, for hte most part, do not pass. This is largely because humans are 99% accurate at predicted sex from facial features alone. Trans people wanting to pass (if not unusually trans in their phenotype already) is an unfortunately cruel aspiration. Similar to actually changing sex. Just, isn't gonna happen basically (though, i note exceptions to the first whereas the second admits of zero).

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/04/30/uks-only-transgender-judge-plans-to-take-government-to-echr-over-biological-sex-ruling Have just seen this.

"This makes life impossible for people like me" is perhaps the most self-demeaning, and self-defeating statement i've heard from a trans person.

Have you read the paper? This is patently untrue and clear attempt to avoid the vitriol of trans activists who routinely harass and attempt to 'cancel' anyone saying anything they don't like in the lit — AmadeusD

Yes. That's the author of the paper you're disagreeing with, I believe. Dhjene is denouncing the conclusions about trans criminality people are making using her work. Dr Dhjene, I believe, would not agree with the interpretation of her paper in the UK parliament document you sent me. This is why I quoted her about it.

I don't know that that's true, but if the community itself, in some significant proportion notices this (my personal trans friends do, also) then it cannot be hte case that this is some inarguable situation where we have to just do as were told (which is the postion). — AmadeusD

Yeah you can have a reasonable discussion about it using the statistics, and I'm glad you've brought them up. Most people are not, however, doing that. There is a world of difference between

1 ) Talking about trans women's rates of sex offence using data.
2 ) Construing trans women as latent rapists on the basis of their {alleged} manhood.

I have the time of day for the former, the latter can suck a bag of dicks, believing something in the manner of ( 2 ) and motte-baileying back to ( 1 ) can suck a larger bag of dicks. It isn't just about being factually correct, people can believe all this stuff in the wrong way. I am not saying you're doing this specifically. I'm bringing the calcified prejudices I usually bring to this discussion's terrain, where knee jerk reactionary crap suffices.

I shall look at your other numbers later.

They're saying it because they are male. Nothing else. They do not need to justify that further. — AmadeusD

People can feel unsafe for whatever reason, it can sometimes be a bad reason. Excluding people from spaces because of personal discomfort, or feelings of unsafety, can also work as a vector of discrimination.

then it cannot be hte case that this is some inarguable situation where we have to just do as were told — AmadeusD

Yes. This could've been a world where people talked about this in a nice way, without prejudice or knee jerk castigation. We don't live in that one. Instead we live in one where the issue is steeped in such a moral panic that talking about it is joining a circular firing line, in which everyone thinks everyone else is a reactionary blowhard centralising a clear cut issue which we should've stopped speaking about ages ago.

Honestly it will be nice when the trans community stops being treated like a global tennis ball for political signalling. Hopefully that comes with easy access and well targeted healthcare as well as humane treatment+protections in gendered places like prisons.

The real question is: are people who claim to be something, especially young people, actually that something just because either A.) they've convinced themselves they are B.) others have convinced them they are [particularly authority figures who may not have the best interest of another life's future best interest in mind, despite being a parent or legal guardian of said person] C.) everyone says they are,

I'm sure most people like to believe they're good people. That number may fluctuate if a ruling government authority declares goodness to be the necessity for not being executed, for example. Or, in lighter terms, if it just becomes the "cool" and "trendy" thing to do or be.

You are not wrong, but you are not concluding something reasonable, imo. — AmadeusD

I'm not particularly trying to conclude something reasonable. If my interlocutor told me "anyone who commits sexual offences against women doesn't belong in women's prisons", I'd need to ask them "what about the women in the prisons who commit sexual offences against their fellow inmates?", and they do that quite a lot.

I think what this shows is that the particular urgency people feel regarding trans women in women's prisons isn't just about sexual assault, there's a special sauce of manhood that people care about. If women are horrible to each other it's fair game, but if one {alleged} man is horrible to them it's a cause for uproar.

I'm not saying any of that is okay, by the by, only highlighting an asymmetry in the urgency people talk about these problems with. If it was as clear cut as "get sex offenders out of women's prisons", or "get people who sexual assault out of women's prisons", it shouldn't even matter if those offenders - or people - are women.

1 ) Talking about trans women's rates of sex offence using data.
2 ) Construing trans women as latent rapists on the basis of their {alleged} manhood.

I have the time of day for the former, the latter can suck a bag of dicks, believing something in the manner of ( 2 ) and motte-baileying back to ( 1 ) can suck a larger bag of dicks. It isn't just about being factually correct, people can believe all this stuff in the wrong way. I am not saying you're doing this specifically. I'm bringing the calcified prejudices I usually bring to this discussion's terrain, where knee jerk reactionary crap suffices. — fdrake

You seem emotionally invested in casting your opposition in a bad light, which is why your construal of the lobbyists lacks prima facie credibility. The more charitable and reasonable alternative to (1) is to recognize the strength differential between males and females, and to recognize that this strength differential accounts for the reason society separates incarcerated males and incarcerated females in the first place. That's the elephant in the room for your reasoning: Why are incarcerated males and females separated at all? The fact that this still remains the elephant in the room is a rather significant problem. Presumably to grant the elephant recognition would be to lose a lot of motivation for the negative construals.

At the very least, the idea that men are generally more physically dangerous to women than women are (given the strength differential), is not irrational. If you put two mammals in a room, the potential for significant harm rises as the strength differential increases. Criminality would seem to exacerbate this dynamic.

And maybe an interesting question is this: for the sake of argument, if a group of people come to a true conclusion via invalid reasoning, should we accept or oppose the conclusion? Probably we want to accept the conclusion while opposing the reasoning. But in this case it's not clear why invalid reasoning from the relatively small group of lobbyists should invalidate a true conclusion (about prisons) for the entire population.

This is why I quoted her about it. — fdrake

Yep but that flies in the face of both the empirical evidence, and the work in that paper. You should read it throroughly (I have, but its been some time). The Dutch Protocol and surrounding work is also an interesting tidbit in this area..

There is a world of difference between

1 ) Talking about trans women's rates of sex offence using data.
2 ) Construing trans women as latent rapists on the basis of their {alleged} manhood. — fdrake

Yes, but they are approaching two different aspects of justification: On the one hand, here's the actual data (this is something, as a Male, i feel required to provide in lieu of talking for females) - on the other, there is hte fact that males, in aggregate cause almost the entirety of social harm to females. So, lets not allow males into intimate, close-quarter spaces particularly where nudity is required in several respects... I think both are totally legitimate, if different types of justification which I fully accept.

the latter can suck a bag of dicks — fdrake

This reads as "Females concerned for their safety based on millennia of data, and their collective lived experiences can suck a bag of dicks"

I assume that's not your intention, based the previous exchange around the same thing - but I find it very, very hard to see a justification for dismissing female concerns based on millennia of data and lived experience as anything but "I don't take it seriously" or some such.. Could you be a bit more specific about what's wrong with that? I don't think a male has any standing to make such dismissals..

excluding people from spaces because of personal discomfort, or feelings of unsafety, can also work as a vector of discrimination. — fdrake

Because they are male. Nothing else. One need not be uncomfortable with males in their spaces to know that the propensity for violence and sexual assault comes with the males, regardless. Males are almost entirely beholden to this underlying potential for force in most situations (albeit, it becomes subconscious after a time). Why would females, the literally weaker sex, not need specific protection from same? I agree it can work as a vector for discrimination. Discrimination is not bad. Arbitrary discrimination is. We discriminate constantly.

in which everyone thinks everyone else is a reactionary blowhard centralising a clear cut issue which we should've stopped speaking about ages ago — fdrake

Cannot argue with this... My epxerience just says one side is vitriolic, tends toward violence and protects criminals and the other doesn't (in this one specific context). Conceptual example being that pro-trans protesting and agitation tends toward chaos and violence, from what I've seen. The anti(lets say) crowd doesn't, until confronted by the former. The former also seeks confrontation (at events, lectures, clubs etc..) and seeks to violate the rights of those with whom they disagree. This is why the ruling is helpful (these are not supposed to be arguments just reports).

If women are horrible to each other it's fair game, but if one {alleged} man is horrible to them it's a cause for uproar. — fdrake

Convert this to sports:

If a female boxed breaks the jaw of a female boxer, alright, that's part of the 'waiver' aspect of getting into the ring.
If a male does it (on the proviso they are competing in a female category), none of that applies to the female whos jaw was broken and I defy anyone with a shred of decency to pretend that is fair game.

The exact same logic applies to sexual assault. If you're in prison with females, and you're female, that comes with the territory (as a risk, anyway). Being raped by a male does not.

I can only return to the point that I do not see what you see in the protests of that side of the argument. If i did, I would definitely agree with you. I acknowledge a small, loud pocket of them do this - but then a small, loud pocket of trans women literally thikn they are better than biological women (superior beings, better women, whatever) and represent "womanhood" more than biological women, and suffer more htan biological women for being women. Utter nonsense, so I get the concern there in the reverse position.

I often see this as well-poisoning by association. I don't paint all TRAs in the light of terfisaslur. But they exist and are worth mentioning.

I often see this as well-poisoning by association. I don't paint all TRAs in the light of terfisaslur. But they exist and are worth mentioning. — AmadeusD

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. I am sure there are bad actors on both sides. I'm just not convinced that "bad acting" is a good basis for a philosophy thread in the Humanities and Social Sciences section. I can understand if @fdrake is frustrated by bad actors, but I don't think that frustration translates into rationale for policy positions. And maybe fdrake recognizes this when he says, "I'm not particularly trying to conclude something reasonable."

The exact same logic applies to sexual assault. — AmadeusD

:up:

I'm not quite sure what you meant by this. — Leontiskos

www.terfisaslur.com - I don't think ever TRA is this type of TRA, but they are worth mentioning.
And the reason for this is exactly what you've outlined in your post :)

Okay, gotcha. :up:
Yeah, I have a feminist friend who has dealt with that sort of thing. She is "old school" in that she gravitates towards Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, but those philosophies are heretical in the more aggressive parts of the trans community.

I assume that's not your intention, based the previous exchange around the same thing - but I find it very, very hard to see a justification for dismissing female concerns based on millennia of data and lived experience as anything but "I don't take it seriously" or some such.. Could you be a bit more specific about what's wrong with that? I don't think a male has any standing to make such dismissals.. — AmadeusD

Yeah. It's the difference between being cautious around men for good reasons and assuming that men are latent rapists, the former's something behavioural and can {and usually is} done without prejudice, the latter treats men as if they are always on the verge of boiling over into rape as if it's an essential facet of masculinity, just waiting to get out.

In the discussion, the latter move also calls trans women men. I know you believe that's true, it's just not a neutral move in this space of ideas. I want to distinguish that from a claim like "trans women have a male pattern of offending", which you could believe even if you believed trans women were women.

The kind of discussion people are having regarding trans women in women's prisons - which is currently rare in the UK anyway - responds to trans women as if they are latent rapists on the basis that they are men.

Someone who goes into the discussion believing that men are latent rapists will then find it very difficult to hear "trans women are women and should thus be allowed in women's spaces", since it will sound to them like "latent rapists should be put in women's spaces".

It roughly comes down to whether you're, in a manner of speaking, calling rape an aspect of every man's personality. Like men are all chomping at the bit to commit sex crimes.

Distinguish that from the claim that the majority of sex crimes committed against women are done by men, which is true. You can just believe that without doing a Dworkin and saying penis = rape.

Conceptual example being that pro-trans protesting and agitation tends toward chaos and violence, from what I've seen. The anti(lets say) crowd doesn't, until confronted by the former. The former also seeks confrontation (at events, lectures, clubs etc..) and seeks to violate the rights of those with whom they disagree. This is why the ruling is helpful (these are not supposed to be arguments just reports). — AmadeusD

Probs a difference in our experience then. The lobbyists here were calling trans folk rapists loudly in the street and handing out pamphlets to that effect. The degree of panic has caused a big spike in trans victimisation. Seeing trans women as latent rapists has real social effects.

Yep but that flies in the face of both the empirical evidence, and the work in that paper. You should read it throroughly (I have, but its been some time). The Dutch Protocol and surrounding work is also an interesting tidbit in this area.. — AmadeusD

I did read it quite thoroughly. I would generally trust the author's interpretation {a scientist} of their own work over people from a think tank.

I also looked at your spreadsheets with the risk in them, they were from the Fair Play Initiative, which is a think tank - which is fine, so long as what they're saying is alright, but it gives me pause. I followed their trail of data back to their freedom of information request from the UK's Ministry of Justice {MoJ}, the MoJ had published a clarifying remark on the degree of caution that data should be interpreted with regarding trans sex offenders:

A government survey has counted 125 transgender prisoners in England and Wales, but the Ministry of Justice says these figures are not yet a reliable reflection of the true numbers. The MoJ says 60 of them have been convicted of one or more sexual offences but it didn't identify their gender. There are likely to be more trans inmates, on shorter sentences and who are less likely to be sex offenders, who don't show up in this data.

...

"Any assessment of a transgender offender's risk of reoffending should be based on valid, evidenced factors that relate to that individual, as for any other offender. We have seen no evidence that being transgender is in itself linked to risk. Risk assessments must be free from assumptions or stereotyping."

It also notes:

There is provision for any female prisoner - trans or not - to be housed in a men's prison if she's deemed especially dangerous.

This was in 2018 by the by.

The MoJ is hesitant to conclude that the trans folk in the data are representative of trans folk's patterns of offending, why? Because in order to be inside of the published data, and count as trans by its lights, you needed to have a case conference - a big meeting, which is only ever given to prisoners serving long sentences.

Why that matters - let's say stealing a blue jelly bean gets you 1 year in jail, and stealing a red jelly bean gets you 2 years in jail. Assume for the sake of argument that rabbits and cows steal jelly beans at equal rates. But sometimes cows like to wear rabbit costumes, and have them at home. In order to find out which cows have rabbit costumes at home, they get a review on the second year of their prison sentence. If they're revealed as being cows wearing rabbit costumes, they'll be recorded as such. Which would mean that any cow wearing a rabbit costume which was recorded would have been in the jail for over 1 year, which meant they could never have stolen a blue jelly bean.

You could look at this and say that cows wearing rabbit costumes have a massively inflated rate of red jelly bean theft, it's 100%! Or you can look at it and say "what about all the cows that just stole blue jelly beans?" and "the high odds of being a cow in a rabbit costume stealing red vs stealing blue is explained more by sampling in the data than anything about being a cow wearing a rabbit costume".

I hope the analogy is sufficiently on the nose that I don't need to substitute things into it.

I should also have stressed in the above post that the numbers from those speadsheets, and from the Fair Play Initiative, don't specifically target trans folks with GRCs. I think this makes the generalisation from the prior data to trans folk with GRC a bit tendentious, considering that the GRC was being proposed as a gateway to prior gendered protections and recognitions.

As is usual with this terrain, lots of issues get agglomerated together - whether the ruling on the GRC and the legal status of trans folks is vindicated will be a separate issue from prison mangement policies. Which, as the MoJ clarified, already had provisions for housing particularly dangerous sex offenders of women in men's prisons. If that was the worry, it was already policy.

So what was the purpose of the bill, if we need to talk about it in terms of trans women in prisons?

I think that many of these discussions tend to get caught up in pointless arguments about what the “real” meaning of a word is.

If you choose to use the words "man" and "woman" to refer to the general biological dichotomy found in humans, then fine. If you choose to the use the words to refer to some general psychological or social dichotomy, then fine. It simply doesn't matter.

The pertinent question is: should bathrooms, sports teams, prisons, etc. be divided by biological sex, by gender identity, by something else, or by nothing at all?

Holy shit you're back.

If your concern is the risk of sexual assault, a relevant question is: is a transgender woman more likely to sexually assault a cisgender woman in a women's prison than a cisgender man to sexually assault a transgender woman in a men's prison?

It may be that placing transgender women in men’s prisons and transgender men in women’s prisons results in more victims of sexual assault than placing transgender women in women’s prisons and transgender men in men’s prisons.

The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated

We have to place each of a cisgender man, a cisgender woman, a transgender man, a transgender woman, and two non-binary individuals with ambiguous genitalia into one of the teams and one of the bathrooms.

Who goes where and why? — Michael

Cis gender man Team A (assuming A is male)
Cis gender woman Team B
Transgender Man Team A or B. (If it is sports and testosterone has been used the they would be illegible for Team B) If it is a bathroom then again A or B as most members of Team A would not feel threatened by a trans man.
Transgender Woman Team A (There is significant advantages in virtually all sports from going through male puberty) Bathroom Team A. A trans woman is biologically male and biological males have been excluded from female only spaces for obvious reasons. This may chamge if society changes but we are a long way off.
Non Binary Team A or B according to their biological sex.

Not that difficult

Non Binary Team A or B according to their biological sex. — Malcolm Parry

It was non-binary with ambiguous genitalia, i.e biologically intersex.

Not that difficult — Malcolm Parry

The general gist I get from your answer is that the divisions should be “cisgender women” and “everyone else”?

It was non-binary with ambiguous genitalia, i.e biologically intersex. — Michael

Yes. They are one sex or the other.

I took "non-binary" as someone who chooses to consider themselves neither gender.

Yes. They are one sex or the other. — Malcolm Parry

They’re intersex

The general gist I get from your answer is that the divisions should be “cisgender women” and “everyone else”? — Michael

There is a reason why women have exclusive sports and have exclusive spaces. I doubt any bloke would care about changing rooms/lavatories or competing with women. Is it not obvious why there is segregation?

Is it not obvious why there is segregation? — Malcolm Parry

I’m not disputing your suggestions, just seeking clarity.

They’re intersex — Michael

There is no person that is not male or female. There may be difficulty categorising them when they are young but they are either male or female. If there is some doubt then they should use the facilities that most reflect their appearance.

I’m not disputing your suggestions, just seeking clarity. — Michael

What are you confused about?

There is no person that is not male or female. There may be difficulty categorising them when they are young but they are either male or female. — Malcolm Parry

Determined by what?

If there is some doubt then they should use the facilities that most reflect their appearance. — Malcolm Parry

Is this also true of those who undergo sex reassignment surgery (including genitals)? Or is it only “natural” appearance that matters?

Determined by what? — Michael

Biology.

Is this also true of those who undergo sex reassignment surgery (including genitals)? Or is it only “natural” appearance that matters? — Michael

I would say only natural but if someone has surgery and looks like a woman, who would know otherwise?

Biology — Malcolm Parry

What about biology determines if someone is male or female? You don’t seem to recognise that being intersex is a biological condition.

I would say only natural but if someone has surgery and looks like a woman, who would know otherwise? — Malcolm Parry

That’s part of why the answer to these questions isn’t so simple. If a transgender man is outwardly indistinguishable from a cisgender man and a transgender woman outwardly indistinguishable from a cisgender woman then how is something like bathroom usage to be legislated and policed?

If we legislate to say that sex chromosomes determine which bathroom someone can use (ignoring for the moment the case of being intersex) then someone like Buck Angel (as he has already been mentioned) is going to face constant abuse and arrest for using the “women’s” bathroom because by outward appearance he looks like the typical biological man.

What about biology determines if someone is male or female? You don’t seem to recognise that being intersex is a biological condition. — Michael

I recognise that intersex people have ambiguous genitalia, reproductive organs, chromosones etc. But they aren't neither or both sexes.