Stay in male jails until you have op, sex offenders told
CAMPAIGNERS say transgender inmates should have surgery before being transferred to female prisons following a “worrying trend” of prisoners declaring they are women.
At one institution, 11 male sex offenders have said they are female.
The inmates at HMP Littlehey near Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, which counts shamed celebrity agent Max Clifford among its 1,200 inmates, are already wearing women’s clothing and have been given £25 a week to spend on cosmetics.
They have also been given use of private showers. They are on a course called Transgender Pathway, which includes psychological tests to prove they genuinely want to live as women and are not just seeking special treatment or transfers - but campaigners fear equality legislation could be exploited.
Recently updated Government guidance states that anyone can register themselves as transgender without having to take hormones or have an operation.
Changes to gender identification mean that any man can now identity as a woman
Campaigners are concerned this will enable male prisoners to be moved to female prisons on false pretences.
Last week Tory MP David Davies [CORR] held a transgender seminar in the House of Commons where concerns were raised by women’s groups.
“There have been several instances of men in prison who have committed sexual offences registering as women in a bid to be transferred to women’s prisons. If they have previously committed sexual offences against women and still have perfectly working male sex orgas, how on earth can we let this happen? It’s a very worrying trend.
“Inmates should have to be post-operative to be moved, it’s as simple as that. If you were born a man with male genitals, you shouldn’t be put in a women’s prison, or a women’s hospital ward or a woman’s changing room or any other area where women have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Loose Women "Transgender is the in thing"
Stephanie Davies-Arai of Transgender Trend, who attended Tuesday’s seminar, said: “Changes to gender identification mean that any man can now identity as a woman and must be accepted as a woman even if they haven’t taken any hormones, and this of course includes violent men and rapists.
“No one is saying that transgender people are violent, but it creates a situation where a violent man or a rapist could identify as a woman and automatically have to be accepted as a woman while still being 100 per cent male. That’s problematic for women because if you say biological sex is not important they women lose their key characteristic.”
Earlier this year a transgender rapist was moved to a women-only jail despite still having a penis. Father-of-three Martin Ponting, 50, became Jessica Winfield behind bars and was moved from male-only Whitemoor to HMP Bronzefield in Surrey - Europe’s largest female prison in March.
Six months later it emerged that she had to be segregated after making unwanted advances on her fellow inmates.
Transgender prisoners were permitted to right to have gender surgery in 1999 when kidnapper John Pilley and five other inmates, including a murderer, launched a legal challenge to have surgery on the NHS.