Statement on the February 11th Transfer Reports
The London Incarcerated Workers’ Organising Committee are deeply concerned with reports from Monday February 11th that a number of trans women have been transferred to the men’s prison estate. This, alongside indications from Ed Argar, Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice, that provisions introduced after the MOJ’s 2016 review of ‘the care and management of transgender offenders’ could be scrapped. Currently, trans prisoners with a Gender Recognition Certificate are housed according to the gender stated on the certificate, while others are assessed on a case-by-case basis.
It is unclear what changes to the policy will mean, but possible outcomes include trans prisoners being moved into isolation, trans women being moved into general population in the men’s estate, or new ‘trans wings’ being introduced. Each of these scenarios pose a serious threat to trans people in England and Wales, incarcerated or not. The introduction of ‘gender responsive’ wings for women, for example, has often preceded the massive expansion of custodial sentencing for women who would have previously received non-custodial alternatives.
We have no doubt that this move is a result of sustained transmisognyist pressure from the media and various social commentators, from conservatives to trans-exclusionary liberal and so-called radical feminists. This includes ‘abolitionist’ Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Transmisogyny authorises the pathologisation, criminalisation and disposability foundational to institutions of state violence, and consequently the movement against them must be trans inclusive.
Due to systemic transmisogyny, trans women are among the most vulnerable in society, both inside and outside prison. The MOJ’s 2016 review was first initiated in response to three high-profile cases of trans women dying in the men’s estate, and trans people in prison are pervasively denied access to healthcare such as hormone treatment. The MOJ’s policy changed for a reason, and, while they see-saw with amendments in response to whoever is currently generating the most publicity, the lives of incarcerated people literally hang in the balance.
Trans women are women, and while nobody should be in prison, it is important that while the prison system still exists those incarcerated within it should be housed in the estate where they feel least unsafe. We want to make it clear that women are not safe in prison because the prison system itself is based in violence and abuse. All women in prison are vulnerable to physical, sexual, and psychological abuse by screws and, at times, other prisoners. Precisely one of the main objections to the prison system is that it concentrates vulnerable and traumatised people in conditions conducive to the proliferation of further harm.
The Karen White case which catalysed much of the recent media storm is a clear example of a failure of safeguarding, and only highlights the inability of those incarcerated to escape abuse while in prison. We condemn White’s actions, as we condemn all sexual violence. However, these actions do not take away from the fact that White is a woman. The exclusive emphasis on her actions, driven by Garside and others, has worked to displace responsibility from the MOJ and obscure the conditions which enabled the harm in the first place. That is, the fact of incarceration.
Despite sensationalisation, this case is not an example of why trans women should not be in women’s prisons, but rather why no one should be.
London IWOC
