More prisoners are transwomen than black men?

That doesn’t parse.

I assume you mean that the PROPORTION of transwomen in prison as a percentage of all transwomen, not as a percentage of all prisoners is higher than the equivalent percentage for young black men…?

That could be true–I have no idea–but absent the actual numbers who ARE in prison, the proportion is not really germane. Even if 95% of all transwomen in the country were in prison, if there were only 2 per Rikers-sized prison we would not build a separate wing for them.

Well, piny, you have a point. It probably is not a good idea to house transmen and transwomen together.

It’s not really that much easier to make distinctions within transsexual genders than between transpeople and non-transpeople, but it’s definitely a start. The problem is that segregation by assumed gender, or assigned gender, or perceived gender, or genitalia all fall short, because you’re talking about a population that really–and I can’t emphasize this enough–doesn’t fit broad-stroke categories around all of those things, particularly if you have (and, in general, I do) a gendered understanding of sexual violence.

In a gender-segregated environment, created in part because of a gender-segregated society, I’m also at a loss as to how best to serve transpeople. It’s like the logic problem about the fox, the grain, the goose, and the farmer with the tiny boat.

Of course genitalia matter”“they matter, for example, to a transguy who might not feel comfortable being housed with a gay man, or to a transwoman who might not feel safe being housed with women.

seem to support that argument. My initial point was that I think that segregating the trasngendered population from the non-transgendered population may be necessary in a prison or jail situation.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that subsets of transgendered people should not also be segregated by gender; I can see where transmen might be uncomfortable being housed with transwomen and vice versa. For that matter, there could also be concerns about lumping homosexuality and transgenderism together and housing non-transgendered homosexuals with transgendered people.

In short, my arguments were about why it is impractical to house transgendered people with non-=transgendered people in a jail or prison setting, so my main concern was problems occurring between transpeople and non-transpeople. But you are absolutely right that in determining how to house transsexual inmates, we also have to consider the possibility of “intra-transsexual violence.” Definitely we ought to be concerned about preventing victimization within transgendered prisons; we shouldn’t just close the doors and assume that as long as the transgendered and the non-transgendered are separate that no violence will happen, or worse, assume that it will but decide that it’s not our problem.

If the special housing is less safe than the general housing, they may not know about it, and apply to live there on the assumption that it does in fact fulfill its stated purpose.

(Note: This isn’t a comment on whether the decision really is a wise one; I don’t know enough to say.)

It requires a lot of thought and discussion…simply saying anyone who doesn’t abide by your conception that genitals don’t matter is bigoted is not particularly helpful to the conversation because, well…to most people they matter. And this complicates the situation whether or not it should in an ideal world, so its not really fair to try to ignore it by saying that its all just discomfort with transpeople.

The first part is exactly my point . Glaivester seems to have been considering these things, but not in a way that has much to do with transpeople themselves–arguing simplistic dichotomies like, for example, transwomen are physically male whereas transmen are psychologically male. The second part is something I’ve never said or implied. Of course genitalia matter–they matter, for example, to a transguy who might not feel comfortable being housed with a gay man, or to a transwoman who might not feel safe being housed with women.

Your solution to this clusterfuck of identity and perceived status, by your own logic, is to take a bunch of people who have good reason to fear rape and house them with a bunch of people who must be expected to rape.

I don’t think Glaivester was saying that at all. Seems like he/she was just saying that where to house a transperson is not as simple as where they’d like to be housed, and maybe the best solution is to come up with a third housing situation like the one that’s closing at Rikers, since transpeople don’t fit neatly into one gender or the other for the purposes of housing, and if that’s not feasible to at least consider all the myriad things that effect the decision of where to place a transperson in gender-binary housing. The situation is more complicated than simply putting transpeople where they want to go, even beyond the issue of people being unreasonably fearful or bothered by their existence there is still the very real issue of transwomen or transmen being harrassed or abused or worse in a male prison and biological women having a variety of valid and maybe not so valid reason for there not being a penis in their shower, regardless of which psychological gender controls said penis. Our society is organized around binary genders at this point, and blurring those lines is still not the norm, and so how to make the traditional structures for segregating gender work for those with not-so-traditional genders is complicated and not at all a simple matter. It requires a lot of thought and discussion…simply saying anyone who doesn’t abide by your conception that genitals don’t matter is bigoted is not particularly helpful to the conversation because, well…to most people they matter. And this complicates the situation whether or not it should in an ideal world, so its not really fair to try to ignore it by saying that its all just discomfort with transpeople.

When we start talking about prisons we begin talking about people who aren’t like Dick and Jane. Dick and Jane aren’t in prison for committing a violent crime. Tom and Mary are, and if Tom and Mary are violent criminals, it doesn’t matter if a transman or transwoman is in prison with them and might be violent, Tom and Mary are already violent criminals.

It has nothing to do with being “uniquely freaky-weird.” It has to do with the fact that we segregate prisoners based on sex and gender, but not based on attractiveness. In other words, trans people’s “difference” (specifically, that their gender does not match their anatomical sex) crosses a boundary by which we segregate prisoners.

Yes, but this “difference” is nowhere near that simple, particularly if you understand that a transsexual may not actually differ.

Most of the time, when people say “anatomical sex,” they’re referring to what’s between my legs. You, on the other hand, are referring to that _and_ a collection of secondary sexual characteristics which any given transsexual may not have in the first place, which may or may not be modified by the hormones that a transsexual may or may not be on. You’ve also referred, variably, to identifying as male, being treated as male, being read as male or masculine, and being socialized as male, all of which circumstances are true of some but not all transsexuals to varying degrees, and all of which may function quite differently in transsexuals than in cisgendered people in terms of predisposition towards rape. Additionally, fear of rape by men is not limited to transsexuals; nor are transsexuals the only people besides non-trans men who are perceived by women as threats.

Your solution to this clusterfuck of identity and perceived status, by your own logic, is to take a bunch of people who have good reason to fear rape and house them with a bunch of people who must be expected to rape.
The analogy wouldn’t be segregating your developmentally disabled prisoner. It would be to put all prisoners with disparate mental and physical ages in the same place, no matter what their disposition and circumstances.

It has nothing to do with being “uniquely freaky-weird.” It has to do with the fact that we segregate prisoners based on sex and gender, but not based on attractiveness. In other words, trans people’s “difference” (specifically, that their gender does not match their anatomical sex) crosses a boundary by which we segregate prisoners. In a situation where women and men are together, there would be little problem with allowing transgenders to be considered whatever gender they please.

To give a better analogy than “ugly women,” let’s consider people whose physical and mental ages do not match. A 25-year-old murderer with a mental age of six may not be able to survive in a prison atmosphere, but due to the fact that his physical body is 25, it would not be right to put him in a juvenile facility. So he may need a third option. Likewise, if we had a murderer whose body never developed properly and who still resembles a child [something along the lines of Emmanuel Lewis] is in the opposite situation; his mental age is that of an adult, but his physical body more like that of a child. And yet, he does not belong in the juvenile facility either; even though in his case it is his mind and not his body that would be different than those of the juveniles. Likewise, he would not necessarily do well in a normal prison because he would be weak and easy to hurt.

In both cases, it would not be fair to the children to put the convict in with them, because they are vulnerable. It would not be fair to the convict to put him in prison with the other inmates, because he would be vulnerable.

I think transsexcuals give a similar situation because women are generally vulnerable than men in a way that men are not to women. And like it or not, both transmen and transwomen are in some respects both male and female, just as the two people in my hypothetical example above are in some respects both children and adults.

As I said before, I am not as concerned about whether putting a transman or transwoman in a male prison would make the male inmates feel threatened as I am that doing so in a female prison would make the female inmates feel threatened. (Which is not to say that I am not concerned about putting a transman or transwoman in a male prison, just that my concern in such a case would be about the threat to the transperson and not to the general population).

As for transmen, well to be honest I have somewhat less of a problem with transmen showering with non-trans women than with transwomen showering with them, but in that case there is the concern that someone who identifies with males may behave more masculine toward the women.

Put another way, both transwomen and transmen have some male characteristics that might intimidate non-trans women. In one case, it would be physical resemblance to a non-trans man, and in the other, psychological resemblance to one.

Exactly my concern, Robert.

If it were your concern, you wouldn’t have a problem with transmen showering with women.

I don’t think they’re threatened by the transsexuality, per se. I think they’re threatened by having a person who is 30% bigger than them and who owns a working penis, showering and residing with them.

I wonder what they do with intersexed prisoners?

I don’t see anything in Glaivester’s words to support that interpretation. Saying that something “should be considered as well” is not the same as “is equivalent”, still less “more important”. Since he is in favour of separate housing for the transgendered, it would appear that he has given due regard to the safety of transgendered prisoners.

You’re right. I misunderstood what Glaivester was saying wrt segregation.

On the other hand, the worst-case perspective for the women could be very threatening to them indeed, so I am very concerned with their rights in this case.

I don’t know if I buy this. I understand that women can feel threatened by transsexuals, but I don’t think it makes sense to say that transsexuals (of either assigned sex) pose the same threat as men. We _know_ that transsexuals housed with men will be in extreme danger. There’s not much evidence that transwomen pose a threat to other women, or that transmen would pose any threat to women.

Okay, let me be more clear. When it comes to housing a transwoman with “non-trans” women, there is a question of how to look at it. The “best-case perspective,” so to speak, is that the transwoman is just a woman, so there is no problem. The “worst-case perspective” is that the transwoman is a man, and thus the woman are being orced to be housed with a man.

My point was that in the worst-case perspective, I do not see housing the transsexual with men as being particularly threatening to the men, so in terms of the rights of the non-transsexuals, I am less concerned with men being forced to live and shower with transsexuals than with women being forced to live and shower with transsexuals.(1) On the other hand, the worst-case perspective for the women could be very threatening to them indeed, so I am very concerned with their rights in this case.

(1) Obviously, in terms of the rights of the transsexuals, forcing them to live with and shower with “non-trans” men is a big deal.

I’m not certain. It would likely depend on how “male” he seemed to the women he lived with. As I said before, in terms of the impact on the non-trans people, I am more worried about women being forced to shower with people they see as men than vice versa, because men are more likely to be a threat to women than vice versa.

Then you support segregation, period, since it’s not possible to predict the extent to which any given transman will seem masculine to any given woman. And you support segregation of anyone whose gender presentation is masculine or androgynous, since those people also frequently seem threatning to other women.