Britain’s Justice Secretary has announced that all violent male inmates claiming to be “transgender” women will be banned from female prisons from Monday.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said males identifying as “transgender” women incarcerated for committing violent crimes would not be allowed to be housed in women’s prisons.
The abrupt changes appear in response to “Isla Bryson,” a biological male convicted of two rapes who was sent to a women’s prison after claiming to be transgender.
The Justice Secretary argued the change would “improve safety for prisoners across England and Wales” and touted it as “common sense.”
“We are very clear that from next week we will introduce new rules which means that any trans offender with their male genitalia intact or who have been convicted of a sexual offense and, adding to that, if they have been convicted of a violent offence, they will not be allowed into the female prison estate,” he told Sky News.
Despite the ban, some transgender male prisoners will still be able to be housed in women’s prisons, with ministers given the power to sign off on allowing “transgender” males.
However, Raab claimed the changes to the prison system were not in response to the Isla Bryson scandal.
Bryson, born Adam Graham, was convicted of raping two women while identified as a man, while his defence claimed his transition was reason to see him acquitted of the charges.
The original plan was to house Bryson in a segregated part of a women’s prison, with the possibility of being moved into the main part of the prison.
But after the story made headlines, the suggestion was eventually shot down after members of the public expressed outrage.
Despite the backlash, Raab emphasized that the Conservative (Tory) Party remains very much pro-transgenderism.
As The Daily Mail reported, the Ministry of Justice figures show there were 230 transgender prisoners in England and Wales in the year to last March, of whom 187 had a legal gender of male and 43 of female.
Of the total, 181 were in male prisons, and 49 were in female ones. There were six trans women in women’s jails.
Previously, there was no requirement to place transgender prisoners according to their preference, with the decision down to the results of a risk assessment.
