3 ms·

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

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.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    how many 13 year girls are currently serving adult sentences in penitentiaries?
- munificent 5y ago
  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.
  - cluedos 5y ago
    > 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?
    - 5y ago
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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.
hackinthebochs 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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 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. > 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 https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics
TimPC 5y ago
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 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.

pessimizer 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  how many 13 year girls are currently serving adult sentences in penitentiaries?
munificent 5y ago
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.
- cluedos 5y ago
  > 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?
  - 5y ago
dragonwriter 5y ago
> 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 5y ago
  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.

hackinthebochs 5y ago

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 5y ago
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 5y ago
  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 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. > 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 https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics

TimPC 5y ago

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.