This is FQ. Not looking for a debate, just would like to know the answer to the question in the title: has any female-bodied person ever been held in the male wing of a UK prison?
No answers, but…
I recall a news item decades ago, about a cross-dressing (male) prisoner put in the female wing of a North African prison by mistake. It took the guards a week or two to figure it out, and apparently by then a few of the female prisoners ended up pregnant.
The Netflix show Wentworth about power struggles in an Australian women’s prison, features a character in the first few seasons who is a trans male undergoing chemical treatments but apparently not yet surgically altered. (And (s)he does not engage with anyone sexually, but still has the upper body strength to be an enforcer) The show seems to be fairly accurate in dealing with assorted details, so presumably this is the sort of thing that could happen in the legal system based on Britain’s… And someone has thought about it.
My gut feel, not knowing anything about the legal issues, is that someone with intact female genitalia would not end up in a prison full of capable males. It’s bad enough that rape happens to men there. (allegedly)
here is an article that addresses this and for Scotland at least it seems that yes, that has indeed happened.
The most recent statistics from November 2022 show there were four trans men and 11 trans women in Scottish prisons. One trans man was in a men’s prison while three were held in a women’s prison.
Six trans women were held in men’s prisons and five were held in women’s prisons. There were a further three non-binary or gender fluid people in prison.
And for England and Wales the numbers also suggest, though don’t confirm, that that is the case as well.
In England and Wales there were 230 trans people in prison as of March 2022.
According to ministry of justice (MoJ) statistics, 187 trans people reported their legal gender as male, and 43 as female. Of these people, 181 were in male prisons and 49 were in womens. Six transgender women were in women’s prisons.
There’s only 1 female prison in Scotland, but several male prisons with female wings, the way it’s phrased it may or may not mean that the lone AFAB trans person who is not in a female prison in Scotland may still be in a male prison in a female wing. England and Wales stats you quote seem to confirm no AFAB in men’s prisons, all 43 in female prisons plus 6 AMAB.