Why do some feminists hate transgender people?

[Reno]

How do people feel about the various universities banning Greer from speaking? I've no time for her weird ideas but it seems bizarre to me that someone like her can be prevented from speaking when all kinds of religious speakers or mainstream politicians will be coming in and out freely to address various meetings.

I think the only people who should be prevented from public speaking or performance are those who actively advocate violence or death for a particular group. Everybody else should be debated. I thought Greer made a right idiot of herself and her vile statements should be opposed but in public debate. Shutting someone down doesn't change anything and only entrenches hostile feelings towards a particular group and its not like Greer was there to talk about trans issues. I get increasingly worried about the culture of outrage, fostered by social media, which is meant to shut down everybody whose opinions a particular group doesn't agree with and which actively seeks to look to get offended.

 

[stethoscope]

For the record, where do you think this decision (and similar ones in recent years) leaves a pre-op transexual woman whose new gender hasn't been legally recognised, and who describes herself as as a woman to a man with whom she subsequently has sexual contact (e.g. a blowjob), if he later claims that he didn't consent to sex with someone who was, in the eyes of the law, a man?

History shows that it usually ends up with the trans woman assaulted or dead if it helps. Again, see 'trans panic defence'.

 

[Athos]

For which "record"?

Thriller. Any record. Whatever. What do you think?

 

[cesare]

Thriller. Any record. Whatever. What do you think?

I agree with stethoscope

 

[Athos]

History shows that it usually ends up with the trans woman assaulted or dead if it helps. Again, see 'trans panic defence'.

And this is made even worse by the possibilty that the trans woman may also be exposed to the threat that she might be prosecuted!

 

[stethoscope]

And this is made even worse by the possibilty that the trans woman may also be exposed to the threat that she might be prosecuted!

If she's still alive.

See 'trans panic defence'.

 

[Athos]

I agree with stethoscope

No, specifically with regrd to the question I asked you:

... where do you think this decision (and similar ones in recent years) leaves a pre-op transexual woman whose new gender hasn't been legally recognised, and who describes herself as as a woman to a man with whom she subsequently has sexual contact (e.g. a blowjob), if he later claims that he didn't consent to sex with someone who was, in the eyes of the law, a man?

 

[Athos]

If she's still alive.

Indeed.

 

[stethoscope]

Transgender woman Vicky Thompson found dead in Leeds male prison
A transgender woman has been found dead in a male prison

(Trans Day of Remembrance tomorrow too)

(will not be posting/replying any further on this thread)

 

[Citizen66]

Shit! RIP

 

[frogwoman]

 

[elbows]

RIP.

What a bloody disgrace. It shouldn't take a death to change the system but if often does I wonder if there will be momentum to change now, given this is the first high-profile uk trans prison suicide since the big outcry over trans prison arrangements.

I read the full prison guidance after the last case that caused a storm, and although some bits of it are actually quite good (can't treat very basic make-up and other stuff required to maintain appropriate image of gender as privileges that can be removed) the thing is a mess. Even some of the positive stuff can end up giving cause for other prisoners to resent and hassle the trans inmate. Most obvious example is that because female prisoners don't have a prison uniform, neither do the trans prisoners, but the males have to.

 

[cesare]

 

[Pickman's model]

poor woman rip

 

[littlebabyjesus]

What a bloody disgrace. It shouldn't take a death to change the system but if often does I wonder if there will be momentum to change now, given this is the first high-profile uk trans prison suicide since the big outcry over trans prison arrangements..

Sadly, I would guess that this only made the news because it happened soon after the big outcry.

 

[elbows]

Sadly, I would guess that this only made the news because it happened soon after the big outcry.

I don't know about that. It could just as likely be in the news because someone, in this case her boyfriend, spoke to the media about it so it wasn't just a statistic or dry press release by the prison service. But there can still be a link on that front in theory - maybe he felt more confident speaking to the media about it after witnessing the tone of respect and support that was demonstrated in many spheres during the last outcry.

 

[trashpony]

82 people committed suicide in British prisons last year. It's a fucking disgrace

 

[Vintage Paw]

82 people committed suicide in British prisons last year. It's a fucking disgrace

Indeed. And we should provide more support to those who need it. Including ensuring people are in the right place.

 

[__steve__]

Indeed. And we should provide more support to those who need it. Including ensuring people are in the right place.

Are you saying prison is a "cry for help"?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Are you saying prison is a "cry for help"?

Hang on, you're the same person as umop apisdn who is banned. So you are still banned.

 

[trashpony]

Indeed. And we should provide more support to those who need it. Including ensuring people are in the right place.

Absolutely

 

[ViolentPanda]

Indeed. And we should provide more support to those who need it. Including ensuring people are in the right place.

Unfortunately, our last half-dozen Home Secretaries have seen inmate "listener" schemes as a replacement for - rather than an adjunct to - psychological services for inmates, so the listeners get inundated with problems that range from the mundane to the horrific.

 

[gosub]

Transgender woman Vicky Thompson found dead in Leeds male prison
A transgender woman has been found dead in a male prison

(Trans Day of Remembrance tomorrow too)

(will not be posting/replying any further on this thread)

shit like that needs addressing. Benddict Cummabund in Zoolander, not so much

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Unfortunately, our last half-dozen Home Secretaries have seen inmate "listener" schemes as a replacement for - rather than an adjunct to - psychological services for inmates, so the listeners get inundated with problems that range from the mundane to the horrific.

And those same half-dozen home secretaries have presided over continual rises in the prison population. Doubling since 1990. Yet the vast majority of prison governors are of the opinion that prisons do nothing but harm to everyone who passes through them. How and why are people being sent to prison? Who needs to be there, and who should not be there? It's a big debate that just doesn't happen. Gordon Brown even boasted of increasing the number of prisoners in election debates.

 

[ViolentPanda]

And those same half-dozen home secretaries have presided over continual rises in the prison population. Doubling since 1990. Yet the vast majority of prison governors are of the opinion that prisons do nothing but harm to everyone who passes through them. How and why are people being sent to prison? Who needs to be there, and who should not be there? It's a big debate that just doesn't happen. Gordon Brown even boasted of increasing the number of prisoners in election debates.

Fear of crime is a big issue with regard to rising prison populations. Successive Home Secretaries have legislated to criminalise actions that once came under the rubric of "antisocial behaviour", for example, because once they generate the folk devil (in, tandem with their friend - the media) they know they can then be "seen to be doing something" when they criminalise antisocial behaviour (as with the recent switch from ASBOs to Community Protection Orders and the like). In effect they're feeding the (to borrow Angela Davis's term) "prison-industrial complex" - an industry which many politicians past and present have ties to.

Fear of crime, of course, doesn't reflect actuality of crime. A 2014 survey on the council estate I live on, showed we have one of the lowest instances of crime in the entire Borough of Lambeth. The same survey showed that fear of crime impinged on the lives of over half the residents of the estate. Keep people tense and afraid, keep them atomised and they're malleable individuals, rather than members of a self-confident community.

 

[RubyBlue]

Would be interested as to the criteria some would use to assign a prison place for Vicky Thomson after the lengthy discussion regarding Tara Hudson given that Vicky, who had lived most of her life as a woman, had not undergone any surgery. I'm not sure if she was taking hormones or not.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fear of crime is a big issue with regard to rising prison populations. Successive Home Secretaries have legislated to criminalise actions that once came under the rubric of "antisocial behaviour", for example, because once they generate the folk devil (in, tandem with their friend - the media) they know they can then be "seen to be doing something" when they criminalise antisocial behaviour (as with the recent switch from ASBOs to Community Protection Orders and the like). In effect they're feeding the (to borrow Angela Davis's term) "prison-industrial complex" - an industry which many politicians past and present have ties to..

Yep. It is also the case that certain violent crimes attract much longer sentences now - rape, for instance. That's got to be right - losing your liberty for a hefty stretch not least to get you off the streets and away from others. But this only accounts for a small part of the increase. The absurdity is the plethora of short sentences for much more minor offences. What use is it to anybody to send a person to prison for six months, say? All it does is fuck up their lives – losing jobs, homes, families – and so fuck up society that bit more as their lives are a mess when they get out. It's bad for all of us, and at the very least it ought to be subject to vigorous debate. Take prison-sentencing powers away from magistrates entirely - that would be a start. If a crime only merits six months in jail, then it doesn't merit jail at all.

Vicky Thompson is a good example. She stole a phone and shoplifted some stuff. Sending her to prison for a year - what good does that do her or us? She wasn't a danger to anyone. It just shows a shocking lack of imagination, above all - seems to me that judges don't really have much idea why they are sending people to prison. They're just sleepwalking through a process.

 

[laptop]

Vicky Thompson is a good example. She stole a phone and shoplifted some stuff. Sending her to prison for a year...

I think we can infer from this that she had previous.

Doesn't invalidate your argument about the uselessness of short sentences.

But it leaves a policy question: as things are, it seems inevitable that there will be some kind of "escalation" for repeat offenders.

What?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think we can infer from this that she had previous.

not just previous, these crimes - phone theft plus shoplifting - triggered an unspent suspended sentence. Doesn't change the fact that she changed from being someone who doesn't deserve any jail time into someone who deserves one year due to these two minor, non-violent offences.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

But it leaves a policy question: as things are, it seems inevitable that there will be some kind of "escalation" for repeat offenders.

What?

I'm no fan of prison, full stop. The number of prisoners is an index of a society's failure. But other countries have various measures designed to punish but not to fuck up lives. Weekend prison, for example - you keep your job but you lose your days off.

Thing is, we now live in a place where you are attacked from the off as soon as you lose your job and dare to claim benefits. It is your fault that you don't have a job. This is among a whole range of things that would need to be changed alongside penal reform. It can't be addressed in isolation.

Way too many people living chaotic lives for whatever reason, but not *evil* or dangerous in any way, wind up in jail, which just continues the spiral into chaos. And it happens almost by default, like society can't be bothered to try to think of something better.