A landmark move to ban trans women from Northern Territory’s female prisons has been slammed as fierce debate erupts over inmate safety.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro has declared female prisons should house women only, saying ‘If you’re born a bloke, you’re going to a men’s prison’.
‘Here in the Northern Territory there are no blokes in women’s jails and we’re not having that here, not on my watch,’ she said on Wednesday.
The NT is the first Australian jurisdiction to enact such a policy.
Finocchiaro said her Country Liberal Party government was taking a common-sense approach after it was contacted by the Women’s Forum Australia, a think tank connected to religious groups and conservative politics.
The forum wrote to the prime minister and all state and territory leaders to protest that men were being allowed into women’s prisons by claiming a different gender identity.
The move prompted the Australian Christian Lobby to also call on the SA government to ban ‘biological men’ from women’s prisons.
But transgender and justice advocacy groups have slammed the move.
Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro (pictured) has declared female prisons should house women only, saying ‘If you’re born a bloke, you’re going to a men’s prison’
But trans activists have slammed the forum and Finocchiaro’s implication that transwomen are somehow more likely to be violent, highlighting the claims are inaccurate and increase hate
Alastair Lawrie, policy and advocacy director at the Justice and Equity Centre, said the decision to place trans women in men’s prisons was discriminatory and wrong.
‘Prisoners should be housed in correctional facilities that match their gender identity. Trans women are women and should be in women’s prisons,’ he said.
‘Trans men are men and should be in men’s prisons.’
Prisons manage risk all the time and should do so based on actual risk, not on gender identity or politics, Mr Lawrie said.
He said there was no evidence that transgender women were more violent.
‘Prisons have a responsibility to prevent sexual assaults against people in their care and that can and should be done without discrimination,’ he said.
‘Clearly where a person has a history of sexual violence against women, they shouldn’t be placed in a cell with another woman.’
Justice Not Jails said trans women housed in male prisons experienced disproportionately high rates of sexual assault and physical violence, plus verbal abuse from prison guards.
The Country Liberal Party government policy was introduced on prisons after receiving a letter from Women’s Forum Australia, a think tank connected to religious groups (stock image)
Women’s Forum Australia used two examples of trans women being housed in female prisons as evidence for the need for change.
A 29-year-old woman, referred to as Katie, was allegedly sexually assaulted by her trans cellmate Krista Richards at a South Australia prison.
In a separate case, Autumn Tulip Harper, a 26-year-old trans paedophile, was allocated to a women’s prison in Victoria after being convicted of abusing her five-year-old daughter.
The forum demanded the immediate removal of trans women from female prisons across the country following the incidents.
‘If other states want to be confused by this, that’s a matter for them to justify to their communities, but we won’t be confused by this woke agenda that is being driven by Labor governments around the country,’ Finocchiaro said.
‘This is the consequence of ideologically driven law and policy at state and federal level. Labor is obsessed with social engineering as a distraction from doing what this country actually needs.’
