Backstabbers
National Organization for Women (aka NOW) on Facebook three days ago:
All women should have access to the gender-affirming care they want and need, including those who are incarcerated.
They linked to an article at The 19th with the headline
Incarcerated trans women won sweeping prison reforms in Colorado
Er. Meaning what? That men who claim to be women get to be in the women’s prisons?
Yes, of course that’s what they mean. This is NOW, remember. The W stands for women.
The state signed a legal agreement meant to make prisons safer for transgender women, who are often the targets of violence and harassment.
By “safer for transgender women” they of course mean much more dangerous for women. Did I mention that this is NOW?
The piece goes on to rejoice that
Now, Colorado’s prison system must provide the same gender-affirming health care covered by state Medicaid, and trans women must have the option to be housed with other women.
Which will mean, of course, that those “other women,” the ones who have the bad taste to be just boring old real women, will not have the option to be housed with other women. Men who claim to be women will, and women will not.
This is the National Organization for Women.
Transgender women across the country face life-threatening circumstances behind bars — and the majority of them are forced to live with men.
Because they are men. But now that will change! Now these men can live with women, while the women cannot refuse to live with the men. What progress!!! Life-threatening circumstances behind bars will be women’s alone to enjoy.
…and the boring old men just have to bend over and take it like they always have. Not the angle I’d particularly like to pursue on this argument, but it may be worth mentioning in passing.
BKiSA,
I think they’re related points. As a society, we’re far too blithe about prison rape. Even many liberals will happily make jokes about how someone they don’t like who goes to prison should be “careful not to drop the soap, hahaha.” The risk of rape is just part of the sentence to many people. And I think that’s the attitude here. If placing prisoners in women’s prisons because that’s how they identify leads to a few women prisoners being raped, well, acceptable losses and all that….
For the record, I’ve been pen-pals with half a dozen federal inmates going back something like 15 years, and I volunteered in a state prison for ten years. I’ve also been active in a local prisoner support group for three years. In all of that, I’ve never heard any first-hand report of rape in prisons. I don’t question that things were very bad in the past, and may remain so in some locations, but it seems to me that today prisons are very, very motivated to avoid rape. Indeed as a volunteer I had to take an anti-rape class mandated by federal law, and re-qualify every year.
What I have heard about is soi-disant trans prisoners. There are apparently a fair number of them. I asked one of my correspondents about that, and what annoys him is that they get cosmetics sold through the prison commissary, clothing options not available to everybody, and yes, “gender-affirming healthcare”. He says they’re generally treated quite well, but he resents that they get extra privileges. Not that my friend is particularly in need of cosmetics, but it’s the principle of the thing — why do they get extra stuff and the rest of them don’t?
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Screechy: I’d imagine that it’s more denial that a TW ever would rape a woman. There’s quasireligious pressure not to acknowledge the possibility, even when examples are provided. And when that resistance is overcome, you still have to face the bizarre weighting of the (sweet, vulnerable, stunning, brave) TW’s danger in a men’s facility (one threatened by many) compared to the women’s danger when a TW is present (many threatened by one). It’s as though the danger is measured by the number of threats rather than number of potential victims.
This essay by Eva Kurilova seems relevant. She points out that while trans ideologues are quick to claim “no true trans” in reference to detransitioners, they’re oddly reluctant to do so with violent prisoners.
As I see it, any reaction to prison violence gives the lie to the party line. Either the prisoner truly is trans (whatever that means), in which case it shows that trans-identified males can be as violent as other males, or he’s faking it to take advantage of a captive female population (which of course would never happen), which suggests that perhaps we shouldn’t just allow anyone to self-identify.
It’s infuriating though that women have to be victimized to uphold the party line.
Eva Kurilova’s essay reminded me of ex-Christians talking about being told by current Christians “you were never a *true* Christian”.