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As I mentioned back in July, every month in our office canteen, a member of the HR team hangs up posters on the noticeboard of notable days or commemorations which fall within that calendar month. A lot of these are harmless days and observations that no one could take exception to (World Friendship Day, World Chocolate Day etc.), but a significant number this month were of a more... strident nature. In descending order from the top of the notice board:
Numbers 1, 2, 4 and 5 are unobjectionable (curious if I'll hear the "ugh, every day is International Men's Day!" joke two weeks from today). With regard to #3, my immediate thought was "for God's sake, how many days do you people need?" But my primary reaction was a feeling that 3, 5 and 6 are all in tension with one another, and that anyone who thinks about this for long enough would realise how unstable the coalition is.
More than anything I'm reminded of Scott's evergreen post "Neutral vs. Conservative: The Eternal Struggle":
Were I to argue that male rapists with intact penises don't belong in women's prisons, I'd doubtless be accused of bringing politics into the workplace, but observing Trans Awareness Week is just being a decent person. Were I to point out the shockingly brutal acts of violence against women Hamas committed on October 7th, I'd doubtless be accused of bringing politics into the workplace*; but announcing that you "stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people" is just being a decent person.
I don't know. I'm frustrated. I'd have no problem with a "don't talk about politics in work" rule, provided it was applied consistently.
*Even if I prefaced it by saying that Israel's response was disproportionate, and acknowledging that Israel has also committed crimes against humanity.
This seems like a motte, with the bailey being "all prisoners should be segregated according to their birth gender".
I am opposed to violence against women as it is violence against humans. My estimate is that prison rape is mostly XY-on-XY, with the likelihood of being a victim increasing an order of magnitude for XYs who are MtF.
Obviously all prison rape is bad. It is not part of the punishment, and it is certainly not a privilege for the stronger prisoners -- we do not even allow free men to rape, after all!
Gender segregation plays an important part in prison rape prevention, even though it is clearly not sufficient. As such, I would propose simply extending the intend -- minimize rape -- towards trans people.
So rather than a "one size fits all" solution where the serial rapist only has to yell "I identify as a woman now" to get into the women's shower, or where we place a big-chested bottom surgery MtF with a conviction for bank fraud with a bunch of gang members, I would assign prison genders case by case based on minimizing the overall rape risk.
Take into account physical strength, testosterone level, convictions for violence and especially sexual violence, feminine presentation, etc and determine if the MtF prisoner is more likely to be raped in men's prison than they are to rape in women's prison.
This solution also has the advantage that it will likely piss off both sides of the culture war.
I'll notice your solution is impossible to implement.
You accurately note that the vast majority of prison rape is committed by males. Did you know transwomen have the same rate of sex crimes as any other male?
That is somewhat surprising. I guess that being trans is probably correlated to sexual deviancy (and generally to a strong emotional tie to gender and sex?). On the other hand, I would expect that people on T blockers would commit fewer sex crimes, and a significant fraction of trans women are on T blockers. If these two effects cancel each other out, that is curious.
Still, my initial point was that if we care equally about every rape (as we should), then the risk of a trans woman raping someone in women's prison can not be considered in isolation. Presumably, a lot of prison rape is prevented because most of the would-be rapists are straight men who are really not into fucking other men. If you give them the opportunity to rape dick-girls instead (or even fully transitioned women), I guess many of them would take that. So putting a transwoman into any prison will lead to more expected rape than for a cis person, but we should still strive to minimize it by placing her wherever the risk increase is smaller.
If you want a possible implementation, you can take blood testosterone as a proxy. Make a study, find the crossover point for the relative risks.
Or we could just roll out the tech to stamp down prison rape and leave this as a largely irrelevant CW sideshow.
And why not just segregate prisons by sex like we've been doing all this time? Literally what's the upside of doing it your way?
Outside of the bailey of "transwomen are women," there is a motte of the leftist position of transwomen in women's prison of trying to protect transwomen from being raped in men's prisons.
Personally, I was thinking build a few trans-specific prisons around the country with maybe some accommodations for being harder for them to get visitors. Or a few prisons with special sections for trans people.
That strikes me as rather schizophrenic. If men (/who end up in prison) are so rapey, it doesn't strike me as a great idea to put them in women's prisons.
Yeah, that's fine. I'd still be a bit miffed about having to bend over backwards for a segment of the population that will probably return their gratitude by calling me a nazi, but whatever, it's an acceptable compromise.
The motte is inside the bailey ;)
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