Most aspects of the transgender debate have gone through several distinct stages. First, we’re told that something that is happening is, in fact, not happening. When it is proved, beyond doubt, that this thing is actually happening, we are told that it rarely happens and that we are bigots for noticing – that these indisputable examples are merely outliers that serve as an excuse for transphobia. In the final stage of the debate, the activists will admit that these things are happening, and it’s a good thing, too.
In the debate surrounding male sex offenders being locked up in female prisons, we appear to be at stage two. First, assertions were written off as the fever dreams of transphobic paranoiacs. Now that we have many specific examples of this occurring, some leaders are refusing to address the question at all (Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden); some are trying to square support for the premises of the transgender movement while making disapproving noises about what’s going on (Rishi Sunak); and others have had their careers torpedoed over the issue (Scotland’s Nicola Sturgeon).
But it is, in fact, happening more and more. As Mary Harrington recently noted: “Another day, another new report showing that half of trans prisoners are sex offenders.” The report Harrington is referring to comes from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. A 2022 public records request “shows that of the 161 men in Wisconsin jails who self-reported as transgender, 81 (51%) were sex offenders.” What is significant, however, is that this report is not an outlier. Several years ago, the U.K. group Fair Play for Women also revealed “that roughly half of the trans-identified male prisoners in the United Kingdom were sex offenders.”
As Harrington notes, the BBC promptly “fact-checked” this at the time in an attempt to carry water for the LGBT movement and push the narrative that this stat was misleading. But unfortunately for the BBC, these annoying stats keep on showing up. From Harrington:
Numbers from Canada revealed earlier this year that nearly half (44%) of trans-identified Canadian male prisoners are in jail for sexual offences. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, via the U.S. feminist campaign group Keep Prisons Single Sex, show that across the USA, 47% of male trans-identified inmates are sex offenders.
The 50% figure argues forcefully against the trans activist claim that trans women are women in every meaningful way. The 2022 U.K. Census reported that 262,000 people in Britain identify as trans: around 0.5% of the population. Meanwhile, fewer than 150 women in total are in prison in Britain for sex offences, despite representing half the overall population. If trans women really were indistinguishable from women, they’d barely show up in Britain’s sex offender statistics. In fact, if this were the case, you’d expect most of the trans prison population to be there for theft or TV licence evasion, as is the case with, y’know, women women.
But, of course, we’re not allowed to discuss this. Male rapists are being locked up with vulnerable women in Canadian prisons, but do you think that will come up in any political debate? Do you think a single progressive politician will side with those vulnerable women over the sex offenders locked in with them? Not only will that not happen – although I’d love to be surprised – but anyone who brings it up is the recipient of much self-righteous huffing from the “Trans women are women! Trans women are women!” crowd who cannot admit that the muscular tattooed rapist with the bulging Adam’s apple isn’t who he says he is – because if that’s true, what else might be true?
To admit that this rapist pedophile, for example, is not a woman is to say that men who simply claim to be women are not actually women. Which is true, of course. With that admission, however, the entire house of cards comes down.
But that’s not what we see. Analysis shows, for example, that out of the total population of sex offenders registered as women in 2019, trans-identified males made up around 38 percent of the total, definitely a higher figure than you’d expect if this were a representative proportion of trans individuals, let alone of women.
The figure looks more proportional if you accept the blasphemous premise that trans women are men. Overall, sex offenders almost always are men: figures vary but usually suggest around 90 percent. Now, in Britain, sex offenders make up around 18 percent of the prison population: 11,873 prisoners as of September 2021. So, if around 60 of these identify as women, that’s about 0.5 percent, in line with overall figures for the U.K. trans-identifying population.