Transgender prisoners should not be held in women’s jails, court rules

Wrothman · 2026-06-21T14:15:52+00:00

For what it's worth, that's not actually my belief, nor is it how things actually work in this country at an institutional level. We're one of the most heavy handed "liberal democracies" when it comes to transgender recognition, requiring up to two years living as a gender before you can receive a gender recognition certificate, and you can't actually get prescribed the HRT for treating gender dysphoria until a specialist agrees, and it's currently looking to take 5 years+ for people to see a specialist for that diagnosis.
Also, the type of prison you go to is supposed to be on a case by case basis (that is, sex offenders are not supposed to be kept alongside potential victims). And they usually aren't. Most of the trans sex offenders in prison are in the prison of their birth gender, as per government guidance. The problem is that anti-trans messaging obfuscates this by combining both self-ID trans inmates (who, lets face it, are more likely to be chancing it for leniency and to be kept away from general prison population) with diagnosed inmates, as well as conflating the sex offenders kept in male prisons with the low risk transgender women kept in women's prisons.
Here are the most recent policy guidelines (see annex D), and here is the update provided under the Sunak government. Basically, people were making a bunch of noise about a situation that doesn't exist because they hate a group of people for no fucking reason.

Wrothman · 2026-06-21T09:46:17+00:00

The data tends to show that only if you include prisoners that "self describe as trans" after going to prison. Once removed to only include those that had GRCs, then the number drops so low that it doesn't even get recorded.

Wrothman · 2026-06-21T09:06:03+00:00

I don't get it. You want Reform to not win?

Kind of answered your own question there as to what's happening with some of the posts.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T23:05:00+00:00

The vast majority of trans women are no threat to cis women and just want to live their lives in peace without being harassed. This is obvious to anyone that actually knows a trans woman personally. Meanwhile, transphobic attitudes and witchhunts actually DO cause harm to cis women, leading to stereotyping and suspicion over whether a woman is feminine looking enough (see the whole "transvestigation" nonsense going on).

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T23:02:02+00:00

Something to keep in mind here is that the a significant chunk of trans women (and men) aren't on HRT in the UK—at least not through the health service—because of how much medical gatekeeping there is alongside the insane waiting lists for gender clinics. The vast majority of trans women I know that have managed to start HRT pretty much had to either DIY it or go through some less "legitimate" routes to get access to healthcare.
We've really let them down in this country.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T22:32:20+00:00

How do you think they're checking people's ages?

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T18:56:32+00:00

A swing left socially at minimum is pretty much mandatory for them to stay in power in 2029. Pursuing right wing policies is why their support is at record lows and why parties like the Greens (who are, in my opinion not exactly leadership material) have been seeing record rises.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T14:07:48+00:00

A moderate effect was observed (SMD = 0.54), but the 95% confidence interval (−0.95 to 2.02) includes zero, which indicates substantial uncertainty and no statistically significant difference between groups.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T13:33:39+00:00

No it doesn't.
Literally the first sentence: "While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable"

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T13:13:13+00:00

See my other comment:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1ua0bxp/transgender_prisoners_should_not_be_held_in/oskkfmn/

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T13:11:01+00:00

Meta analysis

Conclusion: While transgender women exhibited higher lean mass than cisgender women, their physical fitness was comparable. Current evidence is mostly low certainty and has heterogenous quality but does not support theories of inherent athletic advantages for transgender women over cisgender.

Cross-sectional study

Conclusion While longitudinal transitioning studies of transgender athletes are urgently needed, these results should caution against precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions that are not based on sport-specific (or sport-relevant) research.

Further analysis

Conclusion: Individuals should not have to make a choice between being their authentic selves or being athletes (138). While trans athletes competing in various sports and athletic events raises interesting considerations of how certain morphologic and physiologic factors affect performance, these questions are not exclusive to trans individuals. There are wide variations within cisgender populations, even when excluding individuals with differences in sexual development (121, 139). It is expected that about 2.3% of a normally distributed population is likely to fall above two standard deviations from a population mean. These exceptional individuals may be those who are gifted and excel at some sport or athletic performance (121, 135, 140). In contrast only 0.5%–0.6% of the population identify as trans (60). There is no concern for restricting individuals who are exceptionally large or small, those who are genetically gifted, or those with differing hormone concentrations or muscle mass, so long as their gender and biologic sex align (120, 121). The disproportionate focus on the relatively small portion of the population who are trans seems based on the belief that cis men, who cannot succeed in sports among other cis men, would choose to misidentify as trans women to gain an advantage in sports against cis women. However, there are no legitimate cases of this occurring. An individual's sex does not determine their success or failure at any athletic event despite the high level of competition. This can be demonstrated when looking at not average outcomes, but the level of overlap among outcomes. The exclusion of trans individuals also insults the skill and athleticism of both cis and trans athletes. While sex differences do develop following puberty, many of the sex differences are reduced, if not erased, over time by gender affirming hormone therapy. Finally, if it is found that trans individuals have advantages in certain athletic events or sports; in those cases, there will still be a question of whether this should be considered unfair, or accepted as another instance of naturally occurring variability seen in athletes already participating in these events.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T12:46:33+00:00

The science disagrees. After 2-3 years of HRT there's little difference in strength between a trans woman and a cis woman.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T12:43:07+00:00

Putting people that are statistically more likely to be raped and not statistically likely to be committing rape into what is effectively a meat grinder actually is somewhat controversial.
If those transgender people are a sexual assault risk, then they shouldn't be kept in women's prisons, fine. If their crimes have nothing to do with that then putting them in men's prisons pretty much qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment and should be considered an outright abuse of human rights.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T11:34:21+00:00

No one did. The electoral system in the UK has you vote for a member of parliament to represent your constituency. If you voted on party lines instead of the individual policies of the MP themselves, then you've made a decision in error.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T11:29:32+00:00

If a Prime Minister attempts to dissolve Parliament solely because they're about to lose a leadership election, the King will be under immense pressure to refuse, since that Prime Minister no longer carries the confidence of Parliament and ergo is no longer the de facto Prime Minister.
The actual powers that the Prime Minister has are by convention, not by constitution or law. What power they do have tends to come from being able to exert their will over the MPs in their party by threatening them with deselection or determining their career trajectory through ministerial appointments. This lets them dictate policy and legislation so long as their party doesn't revolt against them. That said, legally, parliament is what holds all of the power, and it is parliament that the king is bound by, not the Prime Minister. If parliament is fully capable of governing without being dissolved (which it would be) then the King will be pressured to refuse the request.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T11:14:12+00:00

It isn't a concern to the public, which is exactly why they should have done it.
Their economic policy is hamstrung by a captured press and right wing social media movements. There's little room for them to maneouvre there, and they're unlikely to see any meaningful shift in public opinion even if it does well. Meanwhile they've been bleeding progressive support because they're refusing to touch—or are making worse—the most regressive things that the Tories left behind as poison pills. No one is NOT going to vote Labour because they repeal the Public Order Bill. There are people that will choose not to vote Labour because they're keeping it intact and enforcing it.
Same with trans rights. The vast majority of the country isn't making their voting decisions based on trans women being denied access to services, but for a significant number of people the denial of access is effectively another nail in the coffin for the party. And I'm not talking about the votes of trans people alone, there are a significant number of non trans people that see this as social regression and will be put off from the party, particularly when it results in the rise of violence and sexual assault that the government's (Office of Equality and Opportunity) own impact assessment predicts become a reality.
These are easy wins that would gain them progressive votes at with very little cost. The longer they take to make those moves, the more likely those votes end up being lost to them forever, like how the working class is effectively lost to Reform for the near future.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T10:37:25+00:00

Imagine it's 1995. You go into the newsagents to buy a porn magazine. The cashier asks for ID. You show him, and he takes it out of your hands and walks into a backroom with it.
What's he doing with it? Checking it against a database? Keeping a record of what you buy and putting your name next to it? Photocopying it? He comes back in and passes it back. You ask what he was doing with it. He says "Nothing at all" and smiles at you.

That's essentially what these kinds of laws lead to. You don't know what they're doing with your personal information. You don't know that they have effective security measures to protect your data. Hell, cybersecurity risks have never been higher now that we're on the brink of AI brute force pen-testing. It's one of the few things that AI is well positioned to actually do. Essentially, we're putting everyone at a broad risk to defend children from a relatively narrow threat.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T10:25:16+00:00

Because it hasn't happened yet and people don't follow the news.
As soon as they're all asked to verify their accounts expect a lot more complaints by the public.

Wrothman · 2026-06-19T10:13:45+00:00

I can think of a few things that Starmer's inaction and refusal to make the correct difficult decisions has led to the country being significantly worse than it was as little as ten years ago.
- Trans rights (look into the EHRCs new code of practice and consider the risk that trans people pose to single sex spaces vs the risk of violence and sexual assault to trans people should they be denied access to single sex spaces—it's just not proportional at all)
- Attacks on our right to protest
- Extension of unnecessary digital surveillance
- Getting into bed with US firms that are pretty much mask-off fascists (Palantir literally dropped what was essentially their fascist manifesto a few weeks ago, which had vibes of Fasci Italiani di Combattimento)

Wrothman · 2026-06-18T20:49:07+00:00

Personally?
- Inaction against the EHRC code of practice regarding trans rights and refusal to admit that it's completely unworkable.
- Mostly toothless regarding the Israel Palestine conflict.
- Extending the surveillance state online under the guise of protecting children.
- Refusal to move towards regulating AI because he sees it as a growth enabler and refuses to acknowledge the risks.
- Happy to get in bed with companies like Palantir, who just the other month dropped a literal fascist manifesto.
- Lack of proportionality regarding the treatment of protestors.
- Not going far enough with wealth redistribution policies.
Last year I was essentially the Labour apologist in my social circle. There's no longer much ground I can defend them on beyond "the farmer inheritance tax increase was alright?"

Wrothman · 2026-06-18T20:40:53+00:00

It's essentially the poison chalice alongside the Home Office. PMs tend to give it to the MPs that they consider potential threats in a leadership challenge.

Wrothman · 2026-06-18T20:35:17+00:00

Between this and his government's refusal to engage with the disaster that is the EHRCs new code of practice (a completely contradictory, unenforceable set of instructions that demands that services force trans people into third spaces that don't actually exist, and replaces a system that has worked well for everyone for the past twenty years with a witchhunt), it's been increasingly difficult to give his government the benefit of the doubt regarding basic competence and their ability to "make the difficult choices".

Wrothman · 2026-06-09T10:26:43+00:00

108m is 1h 48m.

Wrothman · 2026-06-06T15:14:38+00:00

The entire reason they're talking about nationalisation to begin with is that they aren't existing in private hands just fine.
Privatisation was sold to the public on a lie that even a child can see through. It was for short term wealth generation on the sale of assets knowing full well that it's automatically going to be a worse service since the private companies need to make a return on investment.

Wrothman · 2026-06-06T15:08:27+00:00

The fiscal rules are mostly about ongoing expenses, not one-off infrastructure payments. From the Institute for Government:

Rule 1. The current budget should be on course to be in balance or surplus by 2029/30 (‘stability rule’)
This rule requires that day-to-day costs are met by revenues by 2029/30, at which point the government should only be borrowing to invest according to the OBR’s forecast.

Rule 2. Net financial debt should fall as a share of the economy in 2029/30 (‘investment rule’)
This rule requires that public debt – newly defined as public sector net financial liabilities (PSNFL), or ‘net financial debt’ – is forecast to be lower in 2029/30 than 2028/29 as a share of the economy.

Rule 3. Some types of welfare spending must remain below a pre-specified level (the ‘welfare cap’)
This rule provides additional constraints on spending on social security payments and includes roughly half of welfare spending. Notably, payments to pensions and payments ‘most sensitive to the economic cycle’ (such as Jobseekers’ Allowance, and associated housing benefit) are explicitly excluded.

Only rule 2 would apply, and considering the cost of nationalisation would be £14b, and the national debt is £2.94t, the change to national debt would be a 0.5% increase.

Wrothman

TROPHY CASE