03-08-2022, 02:46 PM
(03-08-2022, 02:00 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Fair enough. I got a little too idealistic there for a minute.
As far as which prison, I think genitalia would be the common sense solution, but that leaves gaps for people like, as an example, Laverne Cox's character in Orange is the New Black. Granted, I don't know if she's had bottom surgery in that show or not, but she is a trans woman who has fully undergone hormone replacement therapies and presents as a woman. The consequences of putting someone like her in a male prison...would be pretty steep. I don't think it should be as simple as "what do you identify as" but I do believe there should be some wiggle room for considering cases that may be on the edge.
It's like that famous Potter Stewart quote regarding pornography.
If you swap out "hard-core pornography" with "woman" and "motion picture" with "person," that would be a decent place to start.
Your for instance of a fully transitioned person who has not had genital replacement surgery being more at risk seems logical, but at the end of the day it doesn't hold water. There are already plenty of men in prison who dress and act as women but are not transgender, for one. Two, they may be more at risk of sexual assault, but so is a physically weak man with no gang protection. Following your argument, we would need to make separate facilities for the physically small/weak as well as they are at far more risk of assault than a larger, more physically strong man.
Also, determining the facility by the person's genitalia covers you from a slew of potential lawsuits. What is to stop a large and imposing man from declaring they are now a woman, agreeing to take HRT (for which they could easily cheek their meds) and then being housed in a woman's prison? Yes, that seems like an extreme example, but I assure you that criminals will find every possible loophole in a rule and exploit the hell out of it. Even without that, can you imagine what would happen to Elliot Page, or any other FTM transgender person who has not had genital replacement surgery, if they were housed in a men's prison? Suffice to say, it wouldn't go well for them, at all. When you look at all the potential ways it could, and would, go wrong housing a person based on their genitalia is absolutely the most fair and equitable solution.
