4 ms·

> 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 th

> 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.

Karunamon 5y ago
It will, however, eliminate pregnancy.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Transwomen are not normally fertile, since the hormone treatments seriously impede the working of their testicles (if they still have them).
  - lesstenseflow 5y ago
    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 https://www.dol.wa.gov/forms/520043.pdf
    - kbelder 5y ago
      Will that lower insurance rates? Hmm...
  - cluedos 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
fzeroracer 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hackinthebochs 5y ago
Strawman. It's not about elimination, but a very predictable increase in rapes due to this policy change.
lesstenseflow 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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?
  - lesstenseflow 5y ago
    > 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.
at_a_remove 5y ago
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 5y ago

It will, however, eliminate pregnancy.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Transwomen are not normally fertile, since the hormone treatments seriously impede the working of their testicles (if they still have them).
- lesstenseflow 5y ago
  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 https://www.dol.wa.gov/forms/520043.pdf
  - kbelder 5y ago
    Will that lower insurance rates? Hmm...
- cluedos 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.

fzeroracer 5y ago

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 5y ago
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.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hackinthebochs 5y ago

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

lesstenseflow 5y ago

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 5y ago
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?
- lesstenseflow 5y ago
  > 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.

at_a_remove 5y ago

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