New rules banning transgender women with male genitalia, sexual offenders, and violent offenders from female prisons in England and Wales come into force on Monday, the justice secretary has announced.
The ban, first announced by Dominic Raab in October, originally applied only to trans women with male genitalia and those convicted of sexual offences. It has now been extended to include those convicted of violent offences, regardless of whether they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate.
Exemptions will only be made in the “most exceptional” cases and with ministerial approval. Transgender women who cannot be safely housed in men’s prisons may be placed in specialist units.
Stonewall, the LGBTQ+ charity, said it was vital that the prison service carry out individual risk assessments, adding that there is no evidence to suggest automatic placement based on sex assigned at birth is safer.
Mr Raab told Sky News that the policy was not a reaction to the case of Isla Bryson, a trans woman convicted of rape in Scotland who was initially held in a female prison before being moved. He said the government wanted a “liberal, sensitive, tolerant approach” to the LGBT community.
According to Ministry of Justice figures, there were 230 transgender prisoners in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022, 187 of whom reported their legal gender as male and 43 as female.
