What violent sex offenders do
Yesterday evening Professor James Treadwell, a criminologist at Staffordshire University, announced his dismay on Twitter at being accused of “transphobia”. The details are vague, even to him. He has not been presented with evidence and he doesn’t and may never know who has accused him.
The issue is Professor Treadwell’s tweeting in favour of the right of female inmates to a single-sex prison estate. In a series of tweets on 27 December 2021, Professor Treadwell outlined his experience of the manipulative behaviour of violent sex offenders who will use loopholes to “game” the criminal justice system. He was clear that his tweets were not directed at the transgender community. He wrote:
“The idea that sex offenders are manipulative individuals who would exploit systems and laws could only be unreal to those who do not know how manipulative sexual offenders can be. All groom, seek to exploit and control.”
We’re talking about men convicted of sex crimes here. Why wouldn’t they be manipulative and prone to exploiting systems and laws where possible? Why wouldn’t they pretend to be trans women? It’s not “they’re trans, therefore evil,” it’s “they’re convicted sex criminals, therefore they have every motive to pretend to be trans women.”
“It isn’t about trans people, it’s about bad people who will exploit the law from self interest and work within a legal framework (that could protect women’s spaces) to do as they want and get what they want. You think that won’t happen, you don’t know how many sex offenders act.”
And you’re not even considering the obvious likelihoods.
Today, Professor Treadwell is in the awful position of fearing for his job; for a few tweets about a subject that he is specifically qualified to speak on. Meanwhile an effective message is simultaneously sent to his academic colleagues nationwide, that they could be targeted next. He is not the first and he won’t be the last. Many criminologists are choosing to look the other way. Professor Treadwell felt that he could no longer do so. His professional integrity appears to be exactly what he is being persecuted for.
Much the same thing happened to Jean Hatchet, who wrote the above.
This is the problem. Once the word “transphobia” is uttered, little else matters. Once it is written down the battle begins. It is like being blindfolded before being flung into a gladiatorial arena. You have no idea who or what you are fighting, and you have no weapons. You experience paralysing terror at what these unfounded accusations might do to your life. The loss of your job, home and everything you hold dear. A cold descends upon you and fear replaces the initial confidence that you have done nothing wrong. You can shout all you want about the unfairness, about your good character, your right to a personal belief, the boundary to your private life; but when the word “transphobia” is flung in your face, that incorporeal mud sticks immediately and it is up to you to prise it off over agonising months.
And of course “transphobia” can mean simply not believing that people can change sex. We have two choices: say we believe the magic, or risk losing everything.
We must keep speaking. Women in prison don’t have a voice and we must be the voices that protect and safeguard them. The criminal justice system has failed these women by placing sexually violent men amongst them. Society has failed many of them before they even get to prison. 82 per cent are incarcerated for non-violent or petty crimes like shoplifting. Much of this “crime” is the result of poverty and debt and committed by women who have been brutalised by men over and over again.
And they don’t have the out that men have. Saying they’re trans men and want to transfer to the men’s prison is obviously not a solution, and neither is staying where they are once men who call themselves trans are added.
I still remember two TIMs gloatingly informing me that sexual predators would never pretend they were trans because they were, by definition, macho-types whose toxic masculinity simply wouldn’t allow them to pretend they were girly females — no, not even to access women. It struck me then how it strikes me now: this is exactly what men who’d been beaten up for being gay/effeminate would think, isn’t it? Most women know better. If they have a chance to catch illicit sight of a naked female bum through the crack in a stall door, they’d truss themselves up in a wig and feathers, Serious sexual predators? They’d grow boobs.
Prof Treadwell is probably running against another common defense in the trans playbook: “It is NOT FAIR to punish innocent transwomen for what OTHER people do.” They belong in women’s spaces because they’re women. They didn’t tell the predators to come in. Why why why then kick them out?
He also seems to be playing by another rule: transwomen aren’t the problem, really. They’re safe. They’re not predators. They don’t rape, abuse, leer, grope, peek, harass, engage in uncomfortable banter, or anything else in women’s spaces. It’s those cis men. Other people, doing wrong things because it’s now even easier for them to get away with it..
Which it is UNFAIR to punish transwomen for.
It shows how loony-tunes the whole thing is when TRA’s and their acolytes can’t even acknowledge the possibility of convicted sexual predators taking advantage of “self-ID” to access women’s spaces.
Even if you discount the debate over whether “gender” isn’t a nonsense concept and “gender dysphoria” a mental illness on level with anorexia,* … if you just want to raise genuine concerns about whether or not a convicted rapist would put on a wig, declare himself trans, … just to get access to more victims and to avoid the reputed harsh treatment doled out to convicted rapists in some men’s prisons, … you’re a racist bigot.
*Or is the fifty-something guy in the hot-pink mini-skirt and the thigh-high socks and high-heeled running shoes and the too-small cheerleader sweater a case of AGP? (TRA answer: “AGP isn’t a real thing! Bigot!”)
In my high school, it is a sure bet that the most macho of guys, the jocks, would have been all over the opportunity to go into the girl’s restroom. It would have been a joke with the guys, and they would probably make some sort of contest out of it. Who would get in first? Who would see the most girls?
The nerds also would have been there, using their nerd knowledge to see what they wanted to see.
And I suspect a percentage of the “nice” guys would be there, even if only to see what a girl’s room looked like.
Men who want to access women don’t feel it is unmacho to put on girl face to do it; they think it makes them clever and resourceful.
Setting aside the discussion we had back then as to whether it is fair to say “all”, have those people that disagree with this statement never seen programs like Chris Hansen’s To Catch A Predator?
@1 Here’s a man who identified as a woman to get £1 off a pint at a pub.
https://foodanddrink.scotsman.com/drink/man-sues-brewdog-for-sexual-discrimination-after-bid-to-get-cheaper-pint-fails/
The cuttlefish strategy, when macho doesn’t work. >> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YH1ytkBM69Q
Didn’t someone recently write a novel that had a man dressing as a woman in order to prey on women? Weren’t we all told that never, ever happens, because trans are all glitter and unicorn farts. Nevermind that the character was a)fictional and b) never claimed to be a woman.
Do we really believe that this never, ever happens?
It’s a very small plot thread in JK Rowling’s latest, so yes.