The United Kingdom government released figures that show 74% of transgender inmates are in prison for violent offenses.
Out of 244 transgender prisoners, both trans men and women, 181 are behind bars for rape, pedophilia, grievous bodily harm and violent robbery, The Telegraph reported Saturday.
"Up to 144 transgender women, men who identify as females, are housed in male prisons while five are currently imprisoned in female jails - including at least one top-security institution where murderers and terrorists are being detained," The Telegraph reported.
In February last year, the U.K. government said it put a series of blocks on allowing biological males who identify as transgender in women's prisons.
"Under the changes, transgender women who are sentenced to custody in the future will not be held in the general women’s estate if they retain male genitalia or have been convicted of a violent or sexual offense – unless in the most exceptional cases. Exemptions will be considered for those currently held in the women’s estate who are assessed as low-risk," the announcement said.
The elevated figures of violent offenses from transgender prisoners is one of the reasons women's groups say they do not belong in female prisons.
Rhona Hotchkiss, who formerly ran a prison, told The Telegraph "that in her experience most trans women prisoners changed their gender only when they came into contact with the criminal justice system."
"Let me be very clear, trans people are not inherently violent and the vast majority live crime-free lives," she said.
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However, Hotchkiss added, "It is always an issue to have males who identify as women in women’s prisons. It’s not necessarily always the physical threat that they experience but the re-traumatization, because many women in prison are already traumatized at the hands of men. They are also faced with constant gaslighting when they are forced to call these men ‘she’. The vast majority of men who identify as transgender in prison did not do so before they came into contact with the justice system."
A female prisoner who spoke to The Telegraph said, "There was nobody on my wing - including the prison staff - who thought it was appropriate for a trans woman to be housed inside a female prison. Almost everyone regarded [the transgender prisoner] as a threat."
"[The transgender prisoner] was an absolute nightmare… and had all the physical features of a man. [The prisoner] was very threatening and intimidating. I think [the prisoner] was fully aware that she was physically much stronger than all the women on the wing and was exploiting that position."
J.K. Rowling, a critic of transgender encroachment in women's spaces, including prisons, shared the article.
Last week, Rowling fired back at activists pushing for trans sex offenders to be put in women's prisons.
"If you support putting violent and sexually predatory men into women's prisons, you are knowingly forcing those women to live in fear of, and, in some proven cases, to suffer abuse that many of them will have endured pre-incarceration. You are not kind. You are not righteous. Women have the basic human right not to suffer cruel and unusual punishment," she said on X.
"The trans activist outrage that ensues on here whenever I share my belief that jailed women shouldn't be used as validation tools or emotional support props for trans-identified male sex offenders is as revealing as it's predictable," she continued.
