It prioritises the demands of male criminals over the rights of vulnerable women

We have written to Ministers to voice our concerns. Please forward this letter to your own MP or attend their surgery in person. This state exploitation of vulnerable women must end.

***

Dear Ministers, 

We are writing to you to object to the way in which the Conservative Government, and responsible Ministers, continue to undermine women's rights via adherence to, and compliance with, gender ideology. We are referring, here, to the Ministry of Justice policy of housing trans-identifying males within women's prisons. 

A High Court judgement delivered last week concluded that the Ministry of Justice's policy is legal. But a different approach would also be legal. It would be possible for the Ministry of Justice to house trans-identifying male prisoners separately from female prisoners by simply invoking specific clauses in the Equality Act which allow for single sex accommodation and service provision. 

That the Government chooses not to follow this alternative approach, indicates that it prioritises male demands over female rights. In our view, because the women involved have no choice - they’re prisoners - they are effectively being used as objects, chattels, to satisfy male demands. 

Nothing in the Gender Recognition Act nor the Equality Act ever foresaw giving men the right to actually ‘access’ the presence of women. Something totalitarian has crept into our system when actual Government policy creates this ‘right of access’ to women. That totalitarianism is gender ideology. We’re shocked that a Conservative government and Ministers comply.

Prioritisation of male demands over female rights 

The Equality Act clearly sets out the legitimacy of service providers providing single sex accommodation for men and women. However, it is up to service providers to invoke this.

The Conservative Government has deliberately chosen not to invoke this with respect to women's prisons. It has chosen instead to place some (but not all) trans-identifying male prisoners within women's prisons. It does not even limit this to those males with a 'Gender Recognition Certificate' who have a legal right to be treated as women for some (but not all) purposes. 

Instead, Conservative policy is to place some men who are biologically and legally male in women's prisons. Sometimes they have committed acts of sexual violence, sometimes rape. This is despite the known vulnerability of women prisoners, many of whom have been subjected to male violence and sexual violation. 

We therefore can't shy away from the truth. The wishes, not even the legally recognised rights, of violent male criminals have been placed ahead of what we would argue are the fundamental human rights of female prisoners.  Vulnerable women should have the right to be housed with safety, dignity, and privacy, and removed from criminal male presence, menace, threat of violence. 

This is not a ‘niche’ concern - it reflects a deep malaise

Some people might think this is a niche issue impacting a tiny number of people. We argue that it is not. In the High Court Judgement given last week on this issue, in the opening sentence, the Judge referred to people being 'assigned' a gender 'at birth'. We know this is nonsense. Sex is determined at conception. There is no 'assignation process' which takes place at birth. There never has been. Not now, not prior to the Enlightenment, not prior to 'Western medicine', not prior to anything, ever. So gender ideology doesn't just undermine and ignore science. It ignores elementary human knowledge. 

Not based in science or reason, gender ideology has no foundation but in the intent of those who promote it. We are handing this small group of people power over all of us. The Conservatives surely cannot remain so complicit.

Female prisoners are being treated as chattels, objects

Via the Equality Act, it is up to service providers to decide whether to provide single sex spaces. They are able to do so when they can point to a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. 

We would have thought that preserving the privacy, dignity, safety of female prisoners would be a legitimate aim. Women are entitled to single sex spaces. They are entitled sometimes to know that there are no men in the room. We believe humans have recognised this forever, across all societies. We would have thought that it would be elementary to recognise that vulnerable female prisoners, who have often been the subject of male violence and sexual assault, would be entitled to a female only space - particularly when the males we are talking about are criminals, sometimes violent criminals. 

We are aware that other services providers - such as High Street retailers - are removing their single sex spaces such as changing rooms. But there is an important factor here. Women generally are free to shop elsewhere. 

Female prisoners can’t go elsewhere - they are locked up. The State is therefore enforcing male presence upon them, without recourse. 

The Gender Recognition Act allows that trans-identifying males be recognised as female-gendered for some, but not all, circumstances. It would be entirely possible to comply with this with dignity, compassion, and care, by providing trans-identifying males with their own specialist prison provision. To go beyond this and to place trans-identifying males within  women’s prisons can only be justified on one basis: that is to give men access to women, to give men the ‘presence of women’. It uses women as chattels, usable objects, to meet a male demand. It uses imprisoned women as chattels, usable objects, to meet male demands.

We can't see a 'balancing of rights' going on here. No matter how we look at it. We only see a demand on one side - which is not actually required in law, and a violation, an objectification, on the other. 

Some people would say life has ever been thus. That male desire trumps female boundaries, or that the powerful trump the vulnerable. But the actual, most elementary, role of the state is to protect the vulnerable. That is literally the primary role of the state! 

When the actual state starts to do the opposite; when it fails to protect the weak but instead to objectify them, and use them, to satisfy the demands of others, that’s a hallmark of totalitarianism. What now ushers in this new totalitarianism is gender ideology. Conservative policy is compliant. 

We want to place on record that we regard the situation as shameful. We hope it will be reviewed.

ConservativesforWomen