[lesstenseflow]

I don't think your sex is "private healthcare information." How would sharing the total number of males in various facilities violate an individuals privacy rights? (sidebar: if you think you retain your right to privacy in prison... all I can say is you've clearly never been to prison :)

Regarding the right to privacy, what's your take on the privacy rights of the (female) women who are being physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?

[nemothekid]

>I don't think your sex is "private healthcare information."

Your sex is private information under GDPR. Why would the GDPR be stricter than than HIPAA in this case?

>Regarding the right to privacy, what's your take on the privacy rights of the (female) women who are being physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?

"But what about the children?" is never a good argument for taking the away the rights of others.

[lesstenseflow]

You're assuming male prisoners have a "right" to be housed with female prisoners, and that female prisoners have no right to sex-segregated facilities. Whether the former "right" exists is far from a settled question.

Assuming the former right does exist, then there is a conflict of rights (between the wishes of males who want to be housed with females, and females who want to be housed without males). Rights conflicts like this are not solved by simply telling one group (in this case, women) to shut up and stop complaining.

Where the ACLU comes in here I have no idea.

[pessimizer]

> Rights conflicts like this are not solved by simply telling one group (in this case, women) to shut up and stop complaining.

I'm pretty sure that's how conflicts with women have been historically resolved.

[PuppyTailWags]

Caveat: We don't actually sex-segregate prisons. We segregate based off of primary and secondary sex characteristics.

[lesstenseflow]

This is nonsense that serves only to obfuscate. Normally this sort of stuff is put forward by people trying to confuse and befuddle the reader.

We segregate prisons by sex. Primary and secondary sex characteristics are observable characteristics that indicate one's sex.

Your argument is like saying "You don't buy a Mazda. You go to the Mazda dealership and buy a car that says Mazda on the back, interior, and on the manual. You don't actually know the car is a Mazda."

[PuppyTailWags]

No, my argument is people mistake a used car lot for a licensed dealership. Just because the salesman says its a Mazda and it has a little logo in the front doesn't tell you much about its history, modifications, etc. Intersex people are in fact pretty common, so much so that there are more intersex olympic athletes than there are trans ones.

[tsimionescu]

Using "males" and "females" here is irrelevant and actively seeking to confuse.

People typically consider that women (cis or trans) have a right to be housed together, and separately from cismen.

If anything, the biggest problem of policy are trans-men, who would likely feel much more concerned by being housed with cis-man prisoners, but who would also make women uncomfortable.

[ryan93]

The desire of women not to be housed with men has nothing to do with the interior gender experience of the male in question.

[tsimionescu]

Sure, but it also has nothing to do with their chromosome structure. It has a lot to do with their gender expression, in the end.

[colpabar]

It's so odd to me that liberals, who seem to care a lot about women's rights, just flat out dismiss women who are genuinely concerned about being raped in prison by males who were secretly transferred to female prisons.

>"But what about the children?" is never a good argument for taking the away the rights of others.

I also hope that you don't point to school shootings to argue against the second amendment then.

[tsimionescu]

Why is that surprising? There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.

On the other hand, it is well known that transwomen are much more often the victims of rape by cismen, if living in men's prisons.

If anything, I would think the biggest problem here is the fate of transmen. I doubt a ciswoman would feel very comfortable sharing a cell with a transman, but a transman also has much higher chances of being abused if sharing a cell with a cisman.

[colpabar]

This is extremely un-PC, but cis women fear being raped by humans with penises much more than they do humans without them.

[tsimionescu]

Do you think a cis woman would fear being raped more by Natalie Wynn[0] or by Buck Angel[1]? I would bet that its the latter.

To be clear: not accusing either of those above of being an actual rapist! Just asking which would be more likely to inspire this fear in someone who doesn't know them.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ContraPoints#/media/File%3AN...

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/BuckAngel/photo

[pessimizer]

> There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.

Are you just making this up, or do you have some statistics on female on female rape?

[grasbo]

> Why is that surprising? There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.

Here's an analysis of data from the Ministry of Justice in the UK, demonstrating that trans-identifying males have similar patterns of criminality to other males, including sexual assault: https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-se...

[lesstenseflow]

> There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.

There is no proof males who identify as trans (transwomen) are any less likely to commit rape than males who do not identify as trans. The rape risk of being housed with a male is real regardless of how the male identifies with regards to gender. If you have data to the contrary (data indicating that trans identifying males are less likely to commit rape than other males) please share.

[Khaine]

And yet, in the short time its been happening this has occurred https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/14/two-inmates...

[joshuamorton]

The article notes that the relationships were consensual. Like, do you think no one in prison would want to have sex? (The article could be misleading, but also there's presumably lots of consensual sex in prison, much as there is quite a bit of non-consensual sex).

[nemothekid]

>It's so odd to me that liberals, who seem to care a lot about women's rights, just flat out dismiss women who are genuinely concerned about being raped in prison by males who were secretly transferred to female prisons.

Really? Are there actual women who are genuinely concerned about this or is this a strawman invented by other people? You see this same issue with transwomen in sports. There is massive concern-trolling for women "who want a level playing field", but when you actually _ask_ women who compete with them (like in the case of Lia Thomas), they don't have a problem with it.

You are masking your transphobia in coddling for women who aren't even complaining about these issues. Women in prison are far more likely to be raped by law enforcement; but somehow the 3 or so transwomen who might sleep in the same cell as a woman is a bigger mark for the ACLU.

>I also hope that you don't point to school shootings to argue against the second amendment then.

That's actually pretty simple for me, I don't think gun rights are inalienable rights, no more than I think I have a right to own a playstation.

[munificent]

> what's your take on the privacy rights of the (female) women who are being physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?

Keeping penises out of the same room with vaginas will not magically eliminate sexual assault because sexual assault is based on power and willingness to harm another, not whether not tab A physically fits into slot B.

If you think keeping penises away from vaginas will eliminate prison rape then clearly you don't know much about rape in mens' prisons.

[lesstenseflow]

I am having trouble following your line of thinking. You're saying that because rape is common in mens' prisons* we should not be concerned about putting males in women's prisons? Wouldn't it make more sense to say "men rape in mens prisons, so women's concerns about being housed with males is reasonable"?

In any event, I still don't see how any of this justifies keeping this whole topic in the shadows and making public discourse impossible by keeping the scope of the question secret from the public.

* I'm taking your word for this, haven't looked it up.

[munificent]

Let me lay it out more abstractly:

The goal (I assume! You haven't spelled this out.) is to reduce the rate of sexual assault between cellmates in prison.

The system has to determine who can end up in the same cell. Prison wardens have access to some data about prisoners. The question is which data is used to partition prisoners.

Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a penis and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor of an increased odds of sexual assault.

My point is that that claim requires some level of supporting evidence since the widespread accounts of prison rape in same-sex prisons implies that simply avoiding penises and vaginas in the same cell does not appear to be sufficient to lower the chances of rape.

Implicit in your comment is only looking at this from the perspective of the woman in the cell who doesn't have a penis. But the other cellmate has to end up somewhere and the overall goal should be to reduce the rate of sexual assault for all prisoners, not just cis ones.

So, if you don't allow trans women into women's cells, where do you put them? And do you really think putting a trans woman in a cell with a male prisoner is going to lead to a lower incidence of assault?

[hackinthebochs]

The "penis and vagina" characterization is too reductive. What's at issue is that males are generally bigger, stronger, and more sexually aggressive than females. These factors in aggregate create increased risk when forcing proximity between men and women while in vulnerable contexts. But none of this needs extra demonstration, this is all common knowledge.

[odessacubbage]

hrt is effectively chemical castration by another name. one of the primary effects of estrogen and anti androgens is erectile dysfunction combined with the shrinking & atrophy of the genitals along with a typically highly diminished sex drive. on balance, this issue, just like sports, is incredibly optically poor for trans people regardless of the facts at hand. the suggestion that mtf trans create an elevated risk for rapes and assaults is a deeply unfair cultural bias that is probably not going away for at least a generation. similarly putting mtf trans into the male prison system seems likely to subject them to incredibly high risk. there are other nations & cultures that have had a legally recognized 3rd gender for much longer than trans rights have been an area of focus in the west, i imagine we could learn a great deal from them on these issues in particular.

[fleetinging]

Not all trans-identifying people use HRT. Indeed some deliberately make no bodily interventions whatsoever - see e.g. Alex Drummond, a 'trans woman' with beard, moustache, and his intact male body.

Third gender in the cultures you allude to is typically just a way of othering gay man, of the "you can't be a real man" variety. It's nothing positive to emulate.

[robotresearcher]

> Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a penis and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor of an increased odds of sexual assault.

> My point is that that claim requires some level of supporting evidence.

The DOJ says 99% of rape and sexual assaults are by males, and that 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male [1].

This is generic data, not trans specific or prison specific. But in the absence of specific data, it seems pretty relevant.

[1] U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence Against Women Report, 2002. via https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics

[TimPC]

I’d argue if prisons have significant rates of sexual assault that prisons are doing little to prevent then prisoner’s should have a right to a private cell. You don’t get to engage in huge rights violations against people who can’t defend themselves for budgetary reasons.

[lesstenseflow]

> Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a penis and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor of an increased odds of sexual assault.

If you don't think this is an issue, can you explain why we should have any sex segregation in prisons at all?

It sounds like you're arguing for mixed sex prisons, even within individual cells.

[dragonwriter]

> If you don't think this is an issue, can you explain why we should have any sex segregation in prisons at all?

Historically, mostly patriarchal misogyny; specifically, the belief that while women were inherently more virtuous, those who had “fallen” a state subject to imprisonment had fallen further, and less correctibly than men, and that they were a corrupting influence that would impair the rehabilitation of imprisoned men (that's also why imprisoned women, originally segregated within prisons rather than in separate prisons, were often given fewer meals, not encouraged to socialize, and otherwise treated worse than male prisoners.)

More recently, in order to avoid reexamining the actual policy of segregation, societies have tried to retcon a more modern rationalization, but that rationalization is not actually the reason for the policy, just an excuse for it.

[grasbo]

That is not universally true, even if it may have applied to some parts of the US prison system in the past.

In particular, influential British prison reformers of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Elizabeth Fry and John Howard, promoted sex segregation as a means to prevent the sexual exploitation of women prisoners. They also pushed for many other reforms to make prisons safer and more rehabilitative environments in general. Nothing to do with patriarchal misogyny.

More recently, the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, first adopted in 1955, states as one of the standards that "men and women shall so far as possible be detained in separate institutions; in an institution which receives both men and women the whole of the premises allocated to women shall be entirely separate". Their rationale was not patriarchal misogyny either, but rather how to maintain a safe and dignified environment for inmates.

[munificent]

Let me take a step back and look at this another way. The initial comment I replied to looked at the issue only from the perspective of the woman in the cell. It treated it as "should a trans woman be with her: yes/no?".

But that's not the actual choice prisons have to make. The choice they have to make is "which cell does the trans woman go into"? Given that there likely aren't enough trans women prisoners to put them only with other trans women, the choice is "with a cis man or with a cis woman." And I believe pretty strongly that putting a trans woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to result in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis woman.

I could be wrong. But given what I've read about trans women being the target of sexual assault outside of prison and sexual assault among males in male prisons, I think it's a fairly safe bet.

I guess the question hinges on whether you imagine a trans woman to be more "like a man" (stereotypically stronger, aggressive, and more prone to perpetrate assault) or "like a woman" (stereotypically weaker, passive, and more prone to being the victim of assault). What I know about trans women suggests the latter more than the former.

Obviously, individual behavior trumps all. Any particular woman (trans or not) who has a history of violence or sexual assault towards women should not be housed with another woman. The same should be true for men (again, trans or not).

The name of the game should be keeping perpetrators away from victims, and my belief is that "has a penis while other has a vagina" is a relatively poor proxy for that. Yes, there is a strong correlation, but that's a Simpson's paradox from combining the much smaller trans population with the very large cis population. If you were to separate out the datasets and consider cis men and women separately from trans men and women, I suspect you would see no or the opposite correlation.

[grasbo]

Here are some examples of what men have done to women since being incarcerated in their prisons:

https://reduxx.info/transgender-inmate-convicted-of-raping-f...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/11/transgender-...

https://www.womenarehuman.com/transgender-felon-who-killed-m...

In summary: women in prison are being raped and sexually assaulted by trans-identifying males, who should never have been locked up in women's prisons in the first place.

It really is well beyond time for authorities to reverse these ridiculous policies that elevate claims of gender identity above all other concerns, and return to segregating prisons by sex like we had previously.

[lesstenseflow]

> And I believe pretty strongly that putting a trans woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to result in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis woman.

Why do you believe this?

Anyway, I believe women have a right to dignity and privacy and to set some boundaries against males in refuges & places they are especially vulnerable. Female prisoners should absolutely be allowed to refuse to share sleeping quarters with males. Frankly think it's nuts that this should be considered a controversial stance.

[cluedos]

> And I believe pretty strongly that putting a trans woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to result in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis woman.

Why do you believe this?

And, more importantly, why is it somehow the responsibility of women to be used as a mitigation for male on male violence?

If a male attacks a trans-identifying male, or there is a risk of this happening, that is entirely a male issue. So why should incarcerating the trans-identifying male amongst women be the solution?

[pessimizer]

> why we should have any sex segregation in prisons at all?

Or age segregation. Just because a 50 year old man has a penis and is 3x the weight of a 13 year old girl doesn't mean that they shouldn't be locked in a cell together. That's just your bigoted assumption that he's a violent person, you don't even know him.

[odessacubbage]

how many 13 year girls are currently serving adult sentences in penitentiaries?

[fzeroracer]

Ironically, a lot of the arguments I've seen could be construed as misandrist because they're operating under the presumption that men are rapists and thus transgender people in women's prisons must be rapists. That's why the argument always focuses around transgender women while failing to address that their same argument would send transgender men to the far less safe male prison.

The actual problem is that prisons are unsafe for everyone and there's little done to make them safer. But they'd rather use transgender people in their culture war because they don't care about the actual violence problems.

[pessimizer]

You mean they'd rather fix the problem that is entirely an own goal than tackle the problem of reorganizing the entire penal system in a deeply unpopular and expensive way?

Once prison is organized like a summer camp with a 2:1 guard to prisoner ratio, we can do them co-ed.

[at_a_remove]

Let's do that power bit.

Okay, so ... statistically, would your average transwoman be taller than your average biowoman? Stronger? There's your power.

[Karunamon]

It will, however, eliminate pregnancy.

[tsimionescu]

Transwomen are not normally fertile, since the hormone treatments seriously impede the working of their testicles (if they still have them).

[lesstenseflow]

One would assume surgery or hormones are required to change your gender designation in Washington State, but in fact this is not the case (neither is required). Here's the form to change gender designation on your driver's license in WA, anyone living in washington state can do it today: https://www.dol.wa.gov/forms/520043.pdf

[kbelder]

Will that lower insurance rates? Hmm...

[cluedos]

It's all about 'gender identity' these days, not hormones and surgery.

Indeed, in trans circles, expecting the latter as a required factor is often considered highly offensive. This, and the notion that a person needs to experience gender dysphoria to be trans, is now derisively known as the 'truscum' point of view.

[tsimionescu]

I think the vast majority of binary trans people consider gender expression to be an integral part of gender identity, and at least a majority also consider HRT or surgery to be a significant component. I think there are close to 0 people walking around with a beard and wearing masculine suits that identify as transwomen.

Non-binary people are another discussion, and how they should fit into male/female spaces is of course unclear.

Overall, I would agree that prison assignment should depend on more than reported identity. Especially since it is conceivable that people in prison are likelier to lie about their internal identity if they believe they can get something out of this lie. This is much less relevant for lower risk environments, such as bathrooms (in my country at least, unisex bathrooms are anyway quite common) or gym lockers.

[hackinthebochs]

Strawman. It's not about elimination, but a very predictable increase in rapes due to this policy change.

[joshuamorton]

> Regarding the right to privacy, what's your take on the privacy rights of the (female) women who are being physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?

Any argument here about privacy is entirely independent of sex and gender. Prison is dehumanizing, address that. Don't be a transphobe.

Edit: There's a bunch of mistaken comments here assuming that this will protect women prisoners in some capacity. That's totally wrong! Women in prison are sexually assaulted, raped, and even impregnated by men all the time and have been for years. Those men are guards[0]. And this happens at a vastly higher rate per capita and overall than any assault by trans inmates. Anyone here with a legitimate interest in protecting women in prison would be attempting to address that harm, because it is far more dire for numerous reasons.

[0]: https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/the-rape-club-womens-priso...

[lesstenseflow]

Is a woman a transphobe for not wanting to share a jail cell with a person who has a penis? I think most people would consider safeguarding female prisoners from males common sense.

I think you should take a moment to consider the (female) women in this situation. Imagine you're a woman 100% at the mercy of the state, and the state locks you in a cell with a male person. Put yourself in their shoes, and try to extend some empathy to them.

[joshuamorton]

I never made any comment about women in prison. I have empathy to anyone in prison. Like I said, its deeply inhumane.

I think people in prison should be protected from other people in prison if they are dangerous, and I think prisons fail to do that today. I don't accept your presumption that having a penis makes someone inherently more dangerous.

Again: if your goal is to protect women in prison, the best way to do that is to advocate for reform that makes prisons safer for everyone. Not by being transphobic, which you're doing instead.

[denton-scratch]

> people in prison should be protected from other people in prison

I strongly agree; if you deprive someone of their liberty, then you take on the responsibility of protecting them - because you've deprived them of the ability to protect themselves.

I'm not aware of any prison regime that takes the safety of prisoners as a key objective. [Edit] Nor do I know of a state that handles the deliberate negligence of prisoner welfare as a criminal offence.

[jibe]

I don't accept your presumption that having a penis makes someone inherently more dangerous

The data really really doesn't support your view. Men are objectively more dangerous.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251886/murder-offenders-...

https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics

An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male

[TimPC]

The data showing 99% of perpetrators are male doesn’t count forcible envelopment as rape. In order to rape a man a woman has to penetrate him in some way for example sticking a finger in his ass.

[TotempaaltJ]

It is not the possession of a penis that causes men to be more dangerous.

[pessimizer]

Men share more than the possession of a penis, of course. But saying the possession of a penis doesn't make men more dangerous in the face of male rape is like saying that a pistol doesn't make a man more dangerous.

[the_why_of_y]

Clearly trans women can't be put in men's prisons if men are this dangerous.

[cluedos]

They are men too, if you peel away the veneer of 'gender identity'.

[BitwiseFool]

>"Again: if your goal is to protect women in prison, the best way to do that is to advocate for reform that makes prisons safer for everyone. Not by being transphobic, which you're doing instead. "

Perfect is the enemy of good and while it's hard to disagree with the sentiment of "reform that makes prisons safer for everyone ", we have no idea what that actually entails and that's so much of a monumental task that it's basically a non-starter. I feel like the sentiment here is "this wouldn't be a problem if we changed everything, so why don't we?"

[cluedos]

> Women in prison are sexually assaulted, raped, and even impregnated by men all the time and have been for years. Those men are guards.

Indeed and this is why feminist organizations, and others with an interest in women's rights and safety, push for policies of only employing female prison guards in women's prisons.

It's no stretch to see why they don't want male prisoners to be incarcerated there too, no matter how such males identity.

If the male guards can't be trusted not to sexually abuse women, how can you expect the same from cohabiting males?