I feel real compassion for people entangled with the criminal Justice and prison systems especially. There’s obviously a tremendous amount of room for improvement.
The difficulty in proving some sex crimes accusations is of course really troubling. Some men are falsely accused, others may technically fall into the category while having more nuanced realities (I’m thinking of like a 19yo in a relationship with a 17yo). Men like that do not belong in the same category as serial rapists or molesters. One confounding aspect of the trans women sexual crime stats is that activists do not allow for differentiation between fetishists and the merely gender/sex noncomforming.
Is there, in your opinion, a solution to the “people charged with sex crimes get beaten up in prison” problem? Other than men theoretically claiming trans status to be moved to a women’s facility for self preservation and/or access to women.
I'm speaking from the US perspective but unfortunately I see no solution to the problem of informal retribution within correctional institutes. I recommend reading these two posts of mine on the subject:
The main problem is that the general population absolutely LOATHES sex offenders, and politicians are only too happy to institute this loathing into law. So there is no way that "going easy on sex offenders" will be a viable political platform anytime soon, which means the legal apparatus will continue dumping sex offenders into prisons.
Moreover, human being's proclivity towards status and hierarchy manifests itself even within prisons. The loathing I describe is shared by inmates and correctional officers, and I have heard from many clients accused of heinous violent offenses casually repeat the mantra of "well at least I'm not a sex offender". It's the only leverage they might have in prison. Those inmates can take their frustrations out on sex offenders, because the one thing better than violence is RIGHTEOUS violence, and this is as morally defensible as it gets.
The fear my sex offenders clients talk about prison is very real. They will do their best to keep the charges under wraps, but this is all public information, and inevitably it will leak. Once that happens, other inmates are ALREADY in prison, and it's not like the threat of being charged with another assault is going to be that much dissuasion. So they'll continue to get the shit kicked out of them, and even if they eventually get released, they'll continue getting ground into the dust. Nobody who matters gives a fuck about these people.
I will read those posts for sure. Would it not be possible to house sex offenders separately from general population? And you may address this in your other pieces, but my initial response is “so what level of punishment is appropriate”
I reeeeeeeeally loathe cruelty and prisons are full of cruelty. But I can see how severe retribution for sex crimes could be a vestige of a less socially developed time. Well, based on the prevalence, I guess that means we are *in* the developmental stage where violence and a vision for conflict resolution without violence are intermixed. For some social strata, violence is the way. For other strata, violence is acceptable. For people with a left-leaning political persuasion, ending state violence is a priority. I don’t know how that would be possible when a significant portion of the population still considers violence of some sort a morally acceptable punishment. I’m just rambling now. Thanks for the food for thought.
Separate housing is certainly possible, and likely already happens to an extent. The underlying problem though is that "treating prisoners well" is just not at all a mainstream priority, and especially not for convicted sex offenders.
I still don’t think you’ve explained the difference. Why would 50% of trans prisoners be there for a sexual crime, in contrast to 11% - 19% of the general prison population? Why, if criminally minded transwomen are just like other criminally minded people, are they not represented with the usual assortment of muggings, drug crimes, bank robberies, etc?
You might even think if they commit these other types of crimes, they would really stand out and be easier to catch because they look so different from the average “person on the street.”
And why, if they are “women,” as many activists suggest — real, actual women just like me — do they not show women’s patterns of criminality?
You suggest in the article that maybe they are so afraid of being beaten up that sex offending men claim to be transwomen after the fact, to be moved into women’s accommodations. Do you have any evidence of this?
If yes, I’d like to see it. If no, it’s as meaningful as saying maybe the moon is made of cheese.
My point was a very narrow point. Yes, everyone knows (I hope) that transwomen are a small portion of the population.
However I don’t consider half of 142 prisoners to be a “rounding error“— if we go through SPSS or a similar program and crunch the numbers, I am confident that half of 142 is statistically significant compared to the “expected” rate of 11-19% if our null hypothesis is that there is no difference between these groups (imprisoned men versus imprisoned transwomen).
Again, if you have evidence that sex offenders claim a trans ID after being imprisoned, I’d love to see that and work it into an update of my article. Otherwise, my point stands.
Based on the rates at which they’re imprisoned, transwomen seem to sexually offend at higher rates than non-trans men.
I don't have to explain the difference as my own point is fairly narrow: I don't think your conclusion is supported by the evidence you presented. This is not at all the same thing as your conclusion being wrong! Even though I believe you're making a leap, it's quite possible you nevertheless landed in the right spot. I am saying however that when we have insufficient evidence, it's ok to claim uncertainty.
I've offered an explanation for why a cis-hetero sex offender might be incentivized to claim a trans identity and I don't think it's fair to compare this to "the moon is made of cheese". I presented it as a plausible factor that complicates the analysis, but I readily admit I do not have direct evidence for it. Nor would I expect to, because to the extent any prisoner is claiming trans identity opportunistically, they naturally would have an incentive to keep that to themselves. "I'm only pretending to be trans" is not something they'd divulge to a researcher collecting data among inmates. The institutions at large also don't have a coherent grasp on how to handle the current trans identity zeitgeist, which is why you see them beclowning themselves so often (see big titty shop teacher).
But there is a corollary to situational sexuality in prisons, where otherwise heterosexual men have sex with other men. It wouldn't make sense for me to tally up the numbers of prisoners who have sex with men in prison and then claim it's a proxy for criminal proclivity in the general homosexual population. The sample is not representative of the whole and I don't believe you've established that "trans prisoner" is representative of "trans population". Had you relegated your claim to *just* trans prisoners, I would not have had an objection.
I never claimed that transwomen are women as I think that's a nonsensical statement. The study you linked about transwomen retaining male patterns of criminality makes intuitive sense to me, because transwomen are male. I'm open to the idea that HRT can have a significant impact in ameliorating male aggression, but hoo boy it would have to overcome a LOT for it to make an appreciable difference.
When I said the number 142 is a rounding error, the concern I was primarily trying to communicate is how difficult it is to draw widespread conclusions from such a tiny sample. How many trans people are in the general population? Impossible to say, because none of the operating definitions make any sense, and almost every study I see nowadays casually lumps in non-binary (which is even more incoherent) within that category. The lack of a reliable population denominator coupled with the institutional incentives to claiming trans identity leaves us in the dark. Statistical significance is not relevant when there are so many serious problems with the sample selection.
Finally, regarding your last sentence, I wouldn't have any pushback with this revision: "Based on the rates at which they’re imprisoned, and assuming imprisonment rate is representative of the general population's behavior, transwomen seem to sexually offend at higher rates than non-trans men."
Laying out operating assumptions transparently tends to foster more productive discussions.
On Pg 4, we see that 40% of women in prison are there for a violent offense, and 26% are for a drug offense, compared to 60% and 13% for men respectively. Would it be fair to claim "women are more likely to commit drug offenses" or "women are about 67% as likely as men to commit a violent offense"? Obviously not, because women get arrested FAR less than men: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42
According to the FBI data, men get arrested for violent offenses at almost 4x the rate women do. So a proper comparison would need to take into account the relevant denominator.
Going back to the trans prisoner comparison, we know that 0.15% of UK prisoners are listed as trans. Whether this is a lot or a little depends entirely on what denominator we use. If trans individuals somehow constitute 10% of the general population, then a 0.15% prisoner rate would indicate that group is astonishingly law-abiding, even if 50% of the prisoners are there for a sexual offense. The opposite implication would be true if we find out trans individuals constitute less than 0.15% of the general population.
We can't draw a conclusion one way or another without knowing what denominator of the baseline population to use.
You don't seem to have considered the possibility that those "trans" prisoners may not actually be "trans" (which I won't attempt to define here). They may not sincerely believe they are women, they may merely see a chance of relocation to a women's prison which will a) reduce the likelihood and severity of physical assault by other prisoners and b) provide opportunities for further sexual offending.
It's a crazy thought, I know, but people capable of social transgressions serious enough for imprisonment may also be dedicated liars. And being in prison is usually the culmination of a series of offences, so many prisoners are fairly clued up about gaming the system and probably have few scruples about doing so. It's not even as if dressing up as a woman as a way to get out of being somewhere you don't want to be is a novel idea: Corporal Klinger was trying it on in MASH when I was at school.
May I finally humbly suggest that the easiest way for prison authorities to determine sincere trans women from fakes is to offer prompt castration as surely all that testosterone interferes with the inner female?
I'm confused, was this comment directed to me? Because I explicitly wrote: "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"
Yes, you did sorry. I phrased it wrong: you don't seem to have considered it *enough.* I think it's obvious that a lot of offenders (not all of them sexual) are gaming the system. Why is it particularly sex offenders? Because they seem to be the ones happiest transgressing against certain moral norms. (I think not stealing is a moral norm too, but a less strong one than sexual assault; I'd consider stealing if I were hungry enough.)
Anyway, my shorter point is that they're (nearly) all liars, and you can learn nothing about the trans population from the prison population. I was serious about the castration thing: making entry to women's facilities dependent on losing one's balls would sort out who was sincere and who not, and the numbers should drop by 99% (at least).
It's plausible, but your thesis doesn't come across as obvious to me. I have to follow my own advice: when faced with insufficient evidence, I have to temper my conclusions accordingly.
I feel real compassion for people entangled with the criminal Justice and prison systems especially. There’s obviously a tremendous amount of room for improvement.
The difficulty in proving some sex crimes accusations is of course really troubling. Some men are falsely accused, others may technically fall into the category while having more nuanced realities (I’m thinking of like a 19yo in a relationship with a 17yo). Men like that do not belong in the same category as serial rapists or molesters. One confounding aspect of the trans women sexual crime stats is that activists do not allow for differentiation between fetishists and the merely gender/sex noncomforming.
Is there, in your opinion, a solution to the “people charged with sex crimes get beaten up in prison” problem? Other than men theoretically claiming trans status to be moved to a women’s facility for self preservation and/or access to women.
I'm speaking from the US perspective but unfortunately I see no solution to the problem of informal retribution within correctional institutes. I recommend reading these two posts of mine on the subject:
https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/how-much-punishment-is-enough
https://ymeskhout.substack.com/p/what-exactly-is-rape-culture
The main problem is that the general population absolutely LOATHES sex offenders, and politicians are only too happy to institute this loathing into law. So there is no way that "going easy on sex offenders" will be a viable political platform anytime soon, which means the legal apparatus will continue dumping sex offenders into prisons.
Moreover, human being's proclivity towards status and hierarchy manifests itself even within prisons. The loathing I describe is shared by inmates and correctional officers, and I have heard from many clients accused of heinous violent offenses casually repeat the mantra of "well at least I'm not a sex offender". It's the only leverage they might have in prison. Those inmates can take their frustrations out on sex offenders, because the one thing better than violence is RIGHTEOUS violence, and this is as morally defensible as it gets.
The fear my sex offenders clients talk about prison is very real. They will do their best to keep the charges under wraps, but this is all public information, and inevitably it will leak. Once that happens, other inmates are ALREADY in prison, and it's not like the threat of being charged with another assault is going to be that much dissuasion. So they'll continue to get the shit kicked out of them, and even if they eventually get released, they'll continue getting ground into the dust. Nobody who matters gives a fuck about these people.
I will read those posts for sure. Would it not be possible to house sex offenders separately from general population? And you may address this in your other pieces, but my initial response is “so what level of punishment is appropriate”
I reeeeeeeeally loathe cruelty and prisons are full of cruelty. But I can see how severe retribution for sex crimes could be a vestige of a less socially developed time. Well, based on the prevalence, I guess that means we are *in* the developmental stage where violence and a vision for conflict resolution without violence are intermixed. For some social strata, violence is the way. For other strata, violence is acceptable. For people with a left-leaning political persuasion, ending state violence is a priority. I don’t know how that would be possible when a significant portion of the population still considers violence of some sort a morally acceptable punishment. I’m just rambling now. Thanks for the food for thought.
Separate housing is certainly possible, and likely already happens to an extent. The underlying problem though is that "treating prisoners well" is just not at all a mainstream priority, and especially not for convicted sex offenders.
I still don’t think you’ve explained the difference. Why would 50% of trans prisoners be there for a sexual crime, in contrast to 11% - 19% of the general prison population? Why, if criminally minded transwomen are just like other criminally minded people, are they not represented with the usual assortment of muggings, drug crimes, bank robberies, etc?
You might even think if they commit these other types of crimes, they would really stand out and be easier to catch because they look so different from the average “person on the street.”
And why, if they are “women,” as many activists suggest — real, actual women just like me — do they not show women’s patterns of criminality?
You suggest in the article that maybe they are so afraid of being beaten up that sex offending men claim to be transwomen after the fact, to be moved into women’s accommodations. Do you have any evidence of this?
If yes, I’d like to see it. If no, it’s as meaningful as saying maybe the moon is made of cheese.
My point was a very narrow point. Yes, everyone knows (I hope) that transwomen are a small portion of the population.
However I don’t consider half of 142 prisoners to be a “rounding error“— if we go through SPSS or a similar program and crunch the numbers, I am confident that half of 142 is statistically significant compared to the “expected” rate of 11-19% if our null hypothesis is that there is no difference between these groups (imprisoned men versus imprisoned transwomen).
Again, if you have evidence that sex offenders claim a trans ID after being imprisoned, I’d love to see that and work it into an update of my article. Otherwise, my point stands.
Based on the rates at which they’re imprisoned, transwomen seem to sexually offend at higher rates than non-trans men.
I don't have to explain the difference as my own point is fairly narrow: I don't think your conclusion is supported by the evidence you presented. This is not at all the same thing as your conclusion being wrong! Even though I believe you're making a leap, it's quite possible you nevertheless landed in the right spot. I am saying however that when we have insufficient evidence, it's ok to claim uncertainty.
I've offered an explanation for why a cis-hetero sex offender might be incentivized to claim a trans identity and I don't think it's fair to compare this to "the moon is made of cheese". I presented it as a plausible factor that complicates the analysis, but I readily admit I do not have direct evidence for it. Nor would I expect to, because to the extent any prisoner is claiming trans identity opportunistically, they naturally would have an incentive to keep that to themselves. "I'm only pretending to be trans" is not something they'd divulge to a researcher collecting data among inmates. The institutions at large also don't have a coherent grasp on how to handle the current trans identity zeitgeist, which is why you see them beclowning themselves so often (see big titty shop teacher).
But there is a corollary to situational sexuality in prisons, where otherwise heterosexual men have sex with other men. It wouldn't make sense for me to tally up the numbers of prisoners who have sex with men in prison and then claim it's a proxy for criminal proclivity in the general homosexual population. The sample is not representative of the whole and I don't believe you've established that "trans prisoner" is representative of "trans population". Had you relegated your claim to *just* trans prisoners, I would not have had an objection.
I never claimed that transwomen are women as I think that's a nonsensical statement. The study you linked about transwomen retaining male patterns of criminality makes intuitive sense to me, because transwomen are male. I'm open to the idea that HRT can have a significant impact in ameliorating male aggression, but hoo boy it would have to overcome a LOT for it to make an appreciable difference.
When I said the number 142 is a rounding error, the concern I was primarily trying to communicate is how difficult it is to draw widespread conclusions from such a tiny sample. How many trans people are in the general population? Impossible to say, because none of the operating definitions make any sense, and almost every study I see nowadays casually lumps in non-binary (which is even more incoherent) within that category. The lack of a reliable population denominator coupled with the institutional incentives to claiming trans identity leaves us in the dark. Statistical significance is not relevant when there are so many serious problems with the sample selection.
Finally, regarding your last sentence, I wouldn't have any pushback with this revision: "Based on the rates at which they’re imprisoned, and assuming imprisonment rate is representative of the general population's behavior, transwomen seem to sexually offend at higher rates than non-trans men."
Laying out operating assumptions transparently tends to foster more productive discussions.
There's another point worth mentioning about the population denominator (and full credit to gdanning for bringing this up first). This study breaks down offense type for incarcerated women: https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Incarcerated-Women-and-Girls.pdf
On Pg 4, we see that 40% of women in prison are there for a violent offense, and 26% are for a drug offense, compared to 60% and 13% for men respectively. Would it be fair to claim "women are more likely to commit drug offenses" or "women are about 67% as likely as men to commit a violent offense"? Obviously not, because women get arrested FAR less than men: https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-42
According to the FBI data, men get arrested for violent offenses at almost 4x the rate women do. So a proper comparison would need to take into account the relevant denominator.
Going back to the trans prisoner comparison, we know that 0.15% of UK prisoners are listed as trans. Whether this is a lot or a little depends entirely on what denominator we use. If trans individuals somehow constitute 10% of the general population, then a 0.15% prisoner rate would indicate that group is astonishingly law-abiding, even if 50% of the prisoners are there for a sexual offense. The opposite implication would be true if we find out trans individuals constitute less than 0.15% of the general population.
We can't draw a conclusion one way or another without knowing what denominator of the baseline population to use.
You don't seem to have considered the possibility that those "trans" prisoners may not actually be "trans" (which I won't attempt to define here). They may not sincerely believe they are women, they may merely see a chance of relocation to a women's prison which will a) reduce the likelihood and severity of physical assault by other prisoners and b) provide opportunities for further sexual offending.
It's a crazy thought, I know, but people capable of social transgressions serious enough for imprisonment may also be dedicated liars. And being in prison is usually the culmination of a series of offences, so many prisoners are fairly clued up about gaming the system and probably have few scruples about doing so. It's not even as if dressing up as a woman as a way to get out of being somewhere you don't want to be is a novel idea: Corporal Klinger was trying it on in MASH when I was at school.
May I finally humbly suggest that the easiest way for prison authorities to determine sincere trans women from fakes is to offer prompt castration as surely all that testosterone interferes with the inner female?
I'm confused, was this comment directed to me? Because I explicitly wrote: "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"
Yes, you did sorry. I phrased it wrong: you don't seem to have considered it *enough.* I think it's obvious that a lot of offenders (not all of them sexual) are gaming the system. Why is it particularly sex offenders? Because they seem to be the ones happiest transgressing against certain moral norms. (I think not stealing is a moral norm too, but a less strong one than sexual assault; I'd consider stealing if I were hungry enough.)
Anyway, my shorter point is that they're (nearly) all liars, and you can learn nothing about the trans population from the prison population. I was serious about the castration thing: making entry to women's facilities dependent on losing one's balls would sort out who was sincere and who not, and the numbers should drop by 99% (at least).
It's plausible, but your thesis doesn't come across as obvious to me. I have to follow my own advice: when faced with insufficient evidence, I have to temper my conclusions accordingly.
There's nothing surprising about those findings