# Should transwomen be allowed in women's prisons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 15, 2023, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830 "2023-02-15T13:51:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/41 "2023-02-15T18:14:45Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Now, you might well say that it’s because transwomen are women and the others aren’t. But at this point we would’ve moved away from the safety argument. No, we haven’t. You’re claiming that transwomen must be kept out of women’s prisons to keep women safe. I’m pointing out that putting them in women’s prisons keeps women–specifically, transwomen–safe. The safety is central to the argument. ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/42 "2023-02-15T18:16:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That’s the motive driving this whole debate, Well that and wanting to make sure they link rapists and transwomen in people’s minds. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/43 "2023-02-15T18:18:51Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > But as I said to **Dead Cat** , there are lots of different types of prisoners who face levels of risk in a male prison equal to or greater than the level of risk faced by transwomen. Snitches, pedophiles, ex-cops, effeminate gay men, and certain gang members would all face elevated levels of risk in a male prison. If the reason for housing transwomen in women’s prisons is that they’re at higher risk of being assaulted or worse, and if the level of risk faced by members of the other aforementioned at-risk groups is on par with or greater than the level of risk faced by transwomen, why should they not also be eligible to serve their sentence in a women’s prison? Lots of the oddball prisoners housed in male prisons would indeed be safer if housed in women’s prisons. As you say. But the other part of that issue is what risks to the existing women in the women’s prisons would be imported into the women’s prisons along with those now-safer inmates formerly housed in the male prison. Any valid approach to harm reduction would need to look at both. Using statistics, not doctrine, as their guiding principle. I think @Miller nailed it. This whole topic is yet another RW freakout > [@Freakouts of the Right](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/freakouts-of-the-right/963631): > > (feel free to make the alt-thread) Looking for a simple list of all the crap the Right has freaked out about since, oh, 2000. Crap like Big Bird, Mr Potato head losing his dick, CRT, Terry Schiavo, kneeling, etc. There has been so many of them that a compendium of the freakouts really is needed. Masks, vaccines, Hillary’s emails, my God, the list goes on. Help me, Dopers! with lots of strawmanning. ---
**Author:** ![WalterBishop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/aeb1de/32.png) [@WalterBishop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WalterBishop)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/44 "2023-02-15T18:22:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No, we haven’t. You’re claiming that transwomen must be kept out of women’s prisons to keep women safe. I’m pointing out that putting them in women’s prisons keeps women–specifically, transwomen–safe. The safety is central to the argument. Just so I’m clear, let me ask you a hypothetical. Imagine a transwoman in a male prison gets moved to a women’s prison for their own safety. If a male member of one of the groups I mentioned earlier (snitches, ex-cops, effeminate gay men etc…) said “I’m unsafe, too. Why can’t _I_ be moved to the women’s prison?” What would you tell him? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/45 "2023-02-15T18:25:28Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Imagine a transwoman in a male prison gets moved to a women’s prison for their own safety. If a male member of one of the groups I mentioned earlier (snitches, ex-cops, effeminate gay men etc…) said “I’m unsafe, too. Why can’t _I_ be moved to the women’s prison?” What would you tell him? I think you think my answer–“this is a women’s prison”–is a gotcha of some sort. But it ain’t. It’s possible for a person to advocate for gender-segregated prisons for the safety of women, AND for putting transwomen with other women for the safety of women, at the same time. In order for you to demonstrate that this is foolishness, you need to show that transwomen present more of a threat to ciswomen in prison than other ciswomen present, and that transwomen won’t have their safety threatened by being housed with men (cis and trans) in the men’s prison. And some third factor that I forgot. That said, if there were a prison system that housed certain male prisoners in the women’s prison genpop as a way to protect their safety, using specific criteria (e.g., that the men were not demonstrated threats to women, and that the men were in heightened risk if they stayed in the men’s prison, and that their presence wouldn’t lead to massive disruptions of some sort), I’d consider it. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/46 "2023-02-15T18:39:37Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > > [@WalterBishop](#): > > > > Thousands of years of violent oppression have earned all women the right to assume that any biological male is a potential threat. > > I freely admit that as a man I am less qualified to comment, but I don’t think this is a healthy or helpful attitude for most women to adopt. I don’t think this way in every situation. Like most women, I DO have a certain low-level fear when I’m in an elevator or stairwell with a guy I don’t know or when a man comes up behind me when I’m walking or hiking alone. I’m tired of having to be so damned aware of my surroundings all the time, an awareness fueled by that low-level fear. And I DO have to be aware. Recently a guy blocked my path and asked if I had a boyfriend, then followed me 4 blocks and stood outside the gates of my complex and watched me. HOWEVER, it’s important to note I have no idea who’s “biologically male.” I’m wary of anyone bigger than me who _presents_ as male because cisgender men are whom I associate with assault, both from experience and the data. If I were in a women’s prison, I’d probably be wary of guards and inmates, period. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/47 "2023-02-15T18:42:19Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Doesn’t matter if they’re rapists or shoplifters, especially since, if you allow the shoplifters in, it becomes much more difficult to argue that the rapists should be kept out. If someone is incapable of distinguishing between a shoplifter and a rapist, their opinions should be automatically discounted as clearly being worthless. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/48 "2023-02-15T18:47:08Z")
To be concerned about the safety of transwomen, it helps to think of them as the women they are, and not some sort of perverted man that might _deserve_ to be abused because “he” could solve the problem easily just by acting “normal”. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/49 "2023-02-15T18:53:30Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > Doesn’t matter if they’re rapists or shoplifters, especially since, if you allow the shoplifters in, it becomes much more difficult to argue that the rapists should be kept out. If shoplifters and rapists can have different lengths of sentences(as they usually do), then why insist that they receive the same _type_ of sentence? Judges take personal circumstances into account all the time, so why should this particular factor not be considered? ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/50 "2023-02-15T18:56:32Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If shoplifters and rapists can have different lengths of sentences(as they usually do), then why insist that they receive the same _type_ of sentence? Judges take personal circumstances into account all the time, so why should this particular factor not be considered? There’s a certain class of person who always fixates on, “But then _someone_ would have to _make a decision!_” as being a big problem in dealing with difficult situations, as if we didn’t already employ people to make decisions every day. They’d rather throw their hands up in despair than do the work to find a decent answer. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/51 "2023-02-15T18:57:35Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > To me, the solution is obvious. House transwomen prisoners in male prisons, but in protective custody. That way they’d be protected like any other high risk prisoner, and women prisons can remain single sex. Wait! I read to the end of the thread and something was sorta chafing on my mind, so I had to go back and find it. By that logic, trans-women could be in protective custody in a women’s prison. This would keeping (as you want) cis-women ‘safe’, while at the same letting trans-women be at a facility where the staff - hopefully - has a better understanding about what it means to be a woman in prison. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/52 "2023-02-15T19:01:27Z")
@ [Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan Could you give a small description of what “protective custody” consists of, and how it might affect a person over the long period? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/53 "2023-02-15T19:28:17Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Could you give a small description of what “protective custody” consists of, and how it might affect a person over the long period? Not sure exactly what you mean, but I’ll describe what happens to inmates deemed ‘vulnerable’. I.e. those who are effeminate or whose behaviors may attract unwanted attention (inadvertently or deliberately seductive or abrasive or just odd), or whose histories make them high risk such as former police officers/prison guards. They generally get assigned to a Special Management Unit (so they end up being called SMUs or ‘smurfs’). Their own housing areas, their own special times at recreation, library, hobby, etc. Restricted work assignments where they’re always under closer observation. How it might affect one over time varies. Ideally their basic needs are met but their world is shrunk further with less contact with the general inmate community and facilities. Some inmates prefer this sort of limitation, others do not. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/54 "2023-02-15T19:38:18Z")
> I would say that to the first approximation, “creating a [prison] environment in which rapists don’t have the opportunity to assault others” is an impossibility. You might with enormous intrusion on the privacy of every prisoner - including the vulnerable people we’re trying to help who might be harmed by this level of surveillance - get the risk down to “really quite low” but the stake for that bet is not yours to put up. Since when do prisoners have privacy? AFAIK, they don’t have privacy from their fellow prisoners unless they’re in solitary, and I believe they’re surveilled there. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/55 "2023-02-15T19:44:20Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Since when do prisoners have privacy? AFAIK, they don’t have privacy from their fellow prisoners unless they’re in solitary, and I believe they’re surveilled there. A lot of inmates in medium and minimum security settings have relatively private bathroom facilities. And inmate culture itself values privacy and generally works towards giving each other some private time and space. It’s privacy that is easily and often breached but the concept and practice exists among the incarcerated. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/56 "2023-02-15T19:48:49Z")
> Should transwomen be allowed in women’s prisons? > [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > So in the UK recently there was a bit of a furor (whipped up by a political dispute between the Scottish and UK parliaments) about a convicted rapist (with male genitalia) identifying as a woman and therefore being sent to a women’s prison. I consider “transgendered” to be completely changed over. It’s not just “identifying with”, it’s having hormone treatment, breasts, and a constructed vagina. That person is now a woman and belongs in a women’s prison. “Identifying with”, but still physically the same, belong in their own cell block with their own showers. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/57 "2023-02-15T20:00:16Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I consider “transgendered” to be completely changed over. Where did you get the impression that this was something you got to define? ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/58 "2023-02-15T20:02:42Z")
That’s why women’s prisons should only have female COs. Statistically, more women in prison are raped by guards than by each other and definitely more than trans women. Put a man in power over women who aren’t allowed to fight back and, well, check the news for the results. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/59 "2023-02-15T20:08:40Z")
> [@WalterBishop](#): > > To me, the solution is obvious. House transwomen prisoners in male prisons, but in protective custody. That way they’d be protected like any other high risk prisoner, and women prisons can remain single sex. As has been asked, what is wrong with putting transwomen in protective custody in _women’s_ prisons? The prison would still be single sex, right? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2023, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830/60 "2023-02-15T20:11:04Z")
I had something to say on this topic- But then I had an hour-long tele therapy appointment and I can’t remember what it was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-transwomen-be-allowed-in-womens-prisons/979830.md?page=4)