The living nightmare faced by women in prison

Rebekah Wershbale's speech to the Women's Rights Network.

Hi, I’m Rebekah Wershbale. Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for coming and for taking the time to address our concerns about the seismic effects that legislation regarding gender ideology is having on women and girls in the real world.

I’m here representing Keep Prisons Single Sex who are involved in ongoing grassroots campaigning on behalf of women in prison. My interest in this is twofold, not only as a women’s rights activist but also as an ex-inmate. I speak for my incarcerated sisters whilst they are effectively silenced and I hope my words do sufficient justice to their feelings about this matter. Our groups have staged demonstrations both on prison grounds and in street campaigns, and so this opportunity to bring these issues to a wider audience is greatly appreciated. 

I’d like to discuss both the present state of women’s prisons and the devastating effect the decision to introduce trans-identifying male prisoners into an already fraught environment is having.

I’m confident that I speak for every woman present today, if not every single woman in society, when I say that a custodial prison sentence is one of our worst nightmares. It goes without saying that it changes lives, and not for the better. All control is instantly relinquished. 

Women inside have no financial security. The jobs we can get in prison earn just £10-20 per week. We rely on this being topped up by people on the outside sending us money, and we have no access to our own bank accounts. We’re in real danger of losing our homes because we can no longer make rent. We’re locked away from our families, our only contact is by letter and brief 10-minute phone calls. Visiting time is the highlight of our week and that requires a bureaucratic process of application. It can’t be stressed enough how emotionally taxing this is, to have contact with our loved ones regimented by factors beyond our control.

We eat, sleep and work to a strict schedule and we’re sanctioned if we’re unable to keep to it. We live in constant dread of having privileges revoked,

Education is available but is limited to GCSE level English and Maths. Open prisons fare slightly better - one that I was held in, Askham Grange, has an elderly IT suite in which you can earn basic qualifications in computer literacy. It’s woefully outdated and of no tangible benefit on the outside. When I was inside the ONLY available option for higher education was an NVQ in hairdressing.

Taking all this into account - and I could go on - to stretch already diminished resources to accommodate transgender prisoners is yet another kick in the teeth for women disadvantaged by the prison system, and to then see these men granted privileges unavailable to women is galling. This is before we even consider the danger posed by them. The current policies ONLY benefit men, at the expense of women inside already struggling with loss of control and greatly reduced quality of life.

Shockingly, funds allocated to build 500 greatly needed mother and baby units has been diverted to create single cells with ensuites for male prisoners that identify as women. Again, this is in the female estate. It’s a no brainer for male prisoners to utter the incantation of transgenderism, this process was ALWAYS going to be exploited. The predictable outcome starkly illustrates how men’s demands have steamrollered these incarcerated mother’s need to be housed adequately with their newborn babies without predatory males - some of whom are convicted of child sex offences - in their spaces. This is an enraging miscarriage of justice.

I’m also a former inmate of HMP Styal in Cheshire. The conditions inside were as bleak then as they are now. Healthcare was not a priority, women were and are terribly unwell, with godawful diets and no good treatment plans. Mental health care is practically nonexistent. We’re talking about a forgotten population of the most achingly vulnerable women that society has left behind. Self harm is endemic, the statistics say that the prevalence is 5 times higher than the rates in men’s prisons - in reality this translates to the fact that the women I knew inside that didn’t self harm were a clear minority.

Many of the inmates are mothers. They miss their babies. You can hear them crying every night after lights out. The fear, pain and despondency they feel is palpable.

There are women as well that feel safer in prison. They welcome institutionalisation, even under these dire circumstances, because their lives have been fraught with and rent asunder by male violence. From their fathers, friends, strangers, partners and husbands. We know the numbers. 60% - well over half - report experiencing domestic violence. 30% report sexual assault. There is no provision for therapy or meaningful recovery so they make the best of what they have, which up until recently was an exclusively female relatively safe space.

Taking all these tragic factors into account, it should be a scandal that these women - with literally NOTHING to shield them, are now being subjected to men, violent, manipulative, aggressive men in the tiny spaces they’re permitted. On top of all the existing grievous harms and insults to their wellbeing. On top of all their anxieties and helplessness, they now have to endure men in their estates and in their cells.

It’s hard to imagine their disquiet at this frankly unthinkable development. Hard to comprehend how they must feel at the prospect of being trapped, with no way out. Locked down by a government that just wants to do right by ‘transgender prisoners’ and is failing to take into account the comfort, dignity and physical safety of a group of traumatised and marginalised women. Women who’ve already had to survive violent hardships and who are rightly terrified of men are now also terrified to say how they’re being affected.

Women in prison do not operate in a hierarchy. We innately recognise trauma in one another and in circumstances of extreme pressure, like those in prison, we tend to band together and form attachments, in groups and as individuals. Inside, this tendency is amplified because all we have is each other. Of course, there are fall outs and shifting alliances, because prison is a microcosm of wider society, but despite this there is always a stable power balance that remains relatively static. The presence of just one man takes this stability and throws it into chaos. Even if, for the sake of argument, that man is one of the ‘good guys’ the dynamic in a group of women will be irrevocably altered, and they will have to sacrifice the links of comfort and security they’ve been able to build and count on in an otherwise abysmal situation.

We KNOW, however, that these particular men are never, ever, even remotely ‘good guys’. They’re predators. A full 60% of male prisoners presently identifying as transgender have been convicted of sex offences, and knowing what we know about the pathetically low rates of conviction, it’s safe to assume these are extremely serious offences. These men know exactly what they’re doing, and so do the prison officers, governors and policymakers that have green-lit this disgusting process at every step, allowing them access to some of the most easy targets.

There is not one single aspect of life inside that isn’t adversely affected by having mixed sex facilities. Women will avoid showering in communal washing spaces. They’ll stay in their cells during any recreation time if common areas are dominated by men. They’ll stop going to the gym and stop partaking in enriching activities - this has already happened, in 2018 a male murderer named Alex Stewart was placed in HMP Greenock and proceeded to destroy a women’s fitness tournament, decisively ending any inclination women felt to enter. Of course, anyone that had a problem with this was labelled transphobic and thusly dismissed. 

Ultimately, male and female prisoners are VASTLY different demographics.The female prison population is just 5% , and we’re imprisoned overwhelmingly for non violent offences. This cannot be overstated. We are not the same as male criminals, we do not share anything like the same offending pattern. Again, ministers and legislators know this damn well and flagrantly disregard the already scant wellbeing of women to appease the whims of manipulative men. It is utterly contemptible that the women bearing the sharp end of this abhorrent capitulation are the ones most in need of protection. 

Every inmate is subject to scrutiny, which among women can be overwhelming enough, but to introduce the sordid element of the male gaze is to create conditions that will be unbearable. 

The first time a women’s prison - again, Askham Grange - took the decision to house a male to female transsexual prisoner was back in 1989 when a man calling himself Stephanie Booth was admitted to the women’s estate despite being convicted of a string of sex offences. This action set a precedent that has reached critical mass today, with the definition of trans now so broad that any man can be moved by simply declaring himself to be a woman. The most recent example I know of occurred this September in which a man known as Sally Dixon, found guilty on 30 charges of child sexual abuse and described by the prosecutor as “a brazen and callous sexual predator” has been placed in HMP Bronzefield, a women’s prison. This is despite the fact that he does not hold a Gender Recognition certificate, and after a recent government announcement by Dominic Raab that prisoners with male genitalia must not be housed in the female estate without ministerial sign off.

For the women inside, unable to consent to the encroachment of these men, this policy is a living nightmare. The only reliable constant I had during my time inside was the support and understanding of other women. It is utterly dreadful to consider women in those same circumstances unable to eat, sleep, work, socialise and even wash themselves without continued and unwanted male presence, before even taking into account the abominable male crimes they’re invariably guilty of. 

I urge you all to consider the plight of these women, at the mercy of policies enacted in the dark, and consider their stark reality. The male estate has specialist provision in place for dealing with difficult, high risk prisoners and the women’s estate simply does not have the resources to manage this escalating crisis. These men must be housed according to sex, not gender identity. I cannot imagine a circumstance in which this is more obvious, and I hope my testimony resonates enough today to lead to real change in legislation to protect women inside.

Thank you.