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I generally find the 21st Century Salonnière’s (also known as Dolly) writing to be thoughtful and insightful, despite the controversial arena she roams around in. Back in April (I have a terrifying reading backlog, ok?) she published the post Sexual Offenses Are More Common Among Transwomen Than Men, a title as provocative as it is unambiguous.
Using prison data from both the UK and the US, Dolly finds that about 50% of trans prisoners are there for a sexual crime, in contrast to 11% - 19% of the general prison population. Hopefully it’s obvious that prisoners are overwhelmingly male by a huge margin, especially for violent offenses, and that the number of trans prisoners is so miniscule as to be almost a rounding error (in the UK there were only 142 trans prisoners out of a total prison population of 92,949 as of 2017).
Dolly’s overall argument is structured thus:
Premise- Trans prisoners are more likely to be there for a sexual offense
Conclusion- Trans people are more likely to commit a sexual offense
I’m not the only one who noticed some glaring omissions in this argument, and a few commentators pointed this out. I would hope my criticism is seen as constructive, but the main feedback I would give is to be more transparent about implicit assumptions. To be clear, Dolly’s operating assumptions (whether stated or not) may be perfectly reasonable, but the discussion is clouded when they're kept shelved away.
The two main assumptions implicitly made are:
Trans prisoners are representative of the trans general population
The amount of law enforcement attention spent on any particular crime is representative of that crime's frequency
I might be missing others, but those are at least the most important. Setting aside the validity of the prison statistics (I’m assuming they’re legit and have no reason to think otherwise) I remain skeptical these are reasonable assumptions for many of the same reasons “And I for truth” listed in their comment to the post:
I’m also skeptical based on my experience as a public defender.
Sex criminals are by far the people treated the worst by the criminal justice system, both by the legal punishments but also informally by retribution from other inmates. When I'm dealing with a sex offense case, I make informal requests to the prosecutor and the judge to not read out their charges out loud, or to take their case last when the courtroom is emptier. Those same clients routinely ask me to not give them any paperwork about their case for fear that it would be discovered by others. All of this is done to protect them, by limiting the number of people who find out about the nature of their charges.
Inmates in general are almost by definition more violent that the general public, and beating the shit out of someone accused of a sex crime is the kind of violence most likely to be implicitly condoned by the powers that be. Correctional officers genuinely have a thankless and very difficult job, and the last thing on their mind is worrying about kiddie diddler getting shanked. Didn’t see it happen, and even if they did, it was self-defense because the rapist provoked it. So yes, the idea that someone accused of a sex offense is more likely to identify as trans once in prison solely for the purposes of better accommodations makes a lot of sense to me. This says less about the authenticity of trans gender identity and much more about the horrific conditions our criminal justice system casually tolerates.
There would also be an added filter at the investigation stage. Sex crimes are notoriously difficult to prosecute, absent clear evidence of violence or coercion. Law enforcement is put in a very difficult situation because they WANT to be receptive of complaints, but they often can't do anything with them due to shoddy evidence. In most of the rape cases I've handled, there is rarely any dispute whatsoever that the people involved had sex, but then the only evidence of a crime is conflicting testimony from the only two witnesses (he said she consented, she denies it). For example, I once had a case where a guy in his 40s had a friends-with-benefits relationship with a 21 year-old for at least two years. The day she reported a rape to police, she was also seven months pregnant with his child. I am not at all saying it’s impossible to rape someone you’re in a relationship with (no matter how casual), but good luck convincing a jury of that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors are thus more likely to pursue charges like this if there are other factors to tip the balance. In the case above, the guy had a domestic violence history from a very long time ago. I also have to assume that their age gap also played a role in moving the needle towards “prosecute”. It would not be surprising if a sex crime garners more lurid attention from the law enforcement apparatus just because the suspect is trans. Prosecutors openly advertising their preferred pronouns does not disavow them of any potential bias against trans people they may harbor, and either way they can only file charges when a beat cop or detective cares enough to forward a report. We’re not pulling from a progressive crowd here.
The overall methodology is complicated by the severe dearth of data on a population this miniscule — how many conclusions can you draw from a sample that is 0.15% of the population? This is further hampered by the relatively incoherent framework of gender identity, particularly when it melds into non-binary territory — how do you determine who should be counted in this group?
One of my hobby horses is being a spoilsport for when someone tries to hoist a heavy conclusion on some flimsy stilts. We can shore this up with some figurative gravel — perhaps some reasonable assumptions to close the gaps, but these should at least be stated outright and explicitly. Short of that, sometimes we just don’t have enough evidence to come to a conclusion, and it’s ok to admit when we don’t and can’t know something. This isn’t a call to give up on trying to answer questions, because even a failed attempt to resolve an inquiry can leave us with a useful blueprint for the future.
If gender is based on self identity and we're supposed to take people at their word then this doesn't make any difference. The guy who decides he's trans 5 minutes before sentencing and the one who had a sex change 20 years ago both have an equally valid identity. As far as I can tell that's how society wants us to operate in every situation except for looking at crime statistics, for example when assigning people to sports teams or when they decide what bathroom to use. So I don't think it makes sense to change that method only in this scenario. If we're not supposed to interrogate their sincerity or commitment in any other scenario then I don't see why would when looking at crime stats.
Seconded. I believe that gender dysphoria is a real medical condition, but also that some people may misidentify as transgender either out of honest confusion about their gender identity, or maliciously in bad faith.
A society in which self-ID is the legal standard has collapsed that distinction, and sees no difference between a trans person who has suffered gender dysphoria since childhood and who has been taking hormones for years vs. a person who gave no outward indication of suffering from gender dysphoria, only "realised" they were transgender immediately after being convicted of a crime, and who has no taken no steps to make themselves more closely resemble a member of the opposite sex.
Now you have to accept the bad actors as members of your own group. You made this bed, now you have to lie in it.
Maybe they collapse the distinction because they have to.
First of all : the point that surgery being the barrier excludes most transpeople is true.
Second: if we go with the "'gender dysphoria" theory of transness as opposed to the "gendered soul" theory of transness this creates real awkwardness. Trans will forever be tied to a medical condition which means it will always be subject to the charge of being a medical disorder.
After all: what is a "gender identity"? Why is this being projected on everyone as opposed to the mentally ill (what else would you call wanting to mutilate your body as your greatest hope of relief)? After all: we do not project a "skinny identity" on everyone and say that anorexics are the ones whose body doesn't their skinny identity or a "cripple identity" and say that people with alien limb syndrome simply have a mismatched identity with their healthy body so let's cut off their hand.
If dysphoria is our marker then we're talking about people with a legitimate psychological condition combined with a propensity for comorbidities like autism and narcissism. Much harder to use the same "it's the social stigma" argument gay rights used.
That is the irony about this entire movement: it depends heavily on the alleged huge suicide rate of transpeople to leverage sympathy yet this line of argument is very susceptible to trans people simply being mentally ill. I'm honestly surprised how successful tap-dancing around the contradictions are, but that might be because nobody dares to actually challenge constructs like "trans kids"
This is true, but I don't see why this a 'charge' rather than merely a fact that is not at odds with viewing medical transition as something often legitimate and necessary. After all, it may be, and in my view is, the case that transition is simply a/the treatment for, yes, the disorder of gender dysphoria.
You're not thinking like an activist. It poses a few problems:
Trans identity would then be behind the gates of doctors which prevents self-definition (a central value on the left) and - more cynically - limits the numbers of "transpeople" and thus the demands one can make in their name. It's a founding tactic of the "LGBT movement" to seek strength in numbers.
IMO this argument can easily slide into trouble, not least because it implies the metaphysical claim that TWAW is nothing more than a tool to manage/mollify mentally ill people and not fact. This immediately raises concerns about how far we should go in accommodation or how much you can judge a person for not playing along. They much prefer the deontological view implied by TWAW.
What if we continue to study this condition and discover something...embarrassing that doesn't fit with the narrative (e.g. autogynephilia as a motive which doesn't really fit the narrative).
If activists are going to be allowed to take the maximal stance that allegedly avoids all of the problems (even if it places it on others) then why wouldn't they take it and avoid awkward issues?
It may indeed be. But would this be the phrase used for allowing anorexics to starve themselves? We would need absolutely overwhelming evidence before we allowed this, especially with children. Do we have this for transpeople, especially the younger cohort that are unlike the previous generations?
See: this is what I'm talking about. I think there's been a rash of less-critical behavior around this precisely because it isn't just seen as treating a medical disorder but the next fight for human rights/dignity. This is why activists talk about "trans kids" and not "kids suffering from dysphoria, most of whom will likely desist after puberty unless on puberty blockers". The latter has far less force.
At this point Finland, Sweden, the UK have all rolled back and criticized some elements of childhood medical transition. America and Canada are not on the same boat and apparently are going full steam ahead. Would everyone have gone this far for a minority that was purely recognized as mentally ill?
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As a society, we treat psychological problems (faulty software) with psychology (reconfiguration of internal reality) and psychiatric problems (faulty wetware) with medications.
Gender problems are treated by a combination of heavy body-altering hormones and vivisectionist plastic surgeries ala The Island of Dr. Moreau. Psychological treatment (“conversion therapy”) is illegal in many jurisdictions. This is considered the most humane treatment because of the high, high statistical likelihood of suicide at every stage including after transition.
Meanwhile, I personally know someone whose lifelong body dysmorphia was resolved with a single moment’s realization he’s described to me in detail. He was a species dysphoric furry, an amputee fetishist/wannabe, and an autogynophile-type trans-null-gender whose Erotic Target Location Error was seeing the essence of womanhood as penislessness, not vagina-having. He said that, up until that moment, he wished thousands of times he could just have “nullo” surgery to remove the hateful appendage, without a constructed vulva in its place. But because nullo is “unnatural,” he figured no ethical surgeon would have done it and never investigated it. Now he’s perfectly fine with being a four-limbed human man with functional male genitals.
It scares me to think that if nullo surgery (with hormone-replacement for the missing balls) was the societally approved genital transition for his issue, which turned out to be psychological, he’d be regretting it now after that realization, possibly suicidally.
Not actually included, good eyes!
He told me he used to always change in the toilet stalls in locker rooms at school and at pools because he was shy and didn’t want anyone to watch. His father confronted him once about not being a real man if he was afraid of being seen nude, and he remembers thinking, “Well, then I don’t want to be a man” with the finality of a decision.
It was that moment he remembered when he was pondering why he wanted to see a film about trans people. He said a hundred things clicked together at once and then fell away like a curtain. He told me that after that, he kept trying to feel the old dysmorphic ache for a different body for a year, like probing an empty tooth socket reflexively with your tongue, but it was just gone.
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