Thread by @yatakalam

Heather Mason @Mason134211f explains female/male difference in criminality: There is 1 woman classified as dangerous offender in the Canadian prison system, and hundreds of men.

That such men can now be placed in women's prisons is a recipe for disaster.

@Mason134211f Heather Mason explains the difference between women's prisons and men's prisons in Canada: There is far less security infrastructure in women's prisons, shared houses rather than cells, mother-child programs, more freedom.

@Mason134211f In the Windsor superjail, on the women's side, women get a housecoat, a pillowcase, a curtain to pull around the toilet, actual weight for workouts.

Men get none of those because they'd use them all as weapons.

Heather Mason: "I worked in the laundry department when I was in Windsor jail. So we did all the males' laundry, and I was constantly finding shanks, because they make weapons all the time. That's not something you typically see on the women's side."

For a long time, there was nothing more than a white picket fence around Grand Valley Prison for Women. Women inmates don't try to escape. Most have children, are the sole caregiver, and just want to do their time and get back home to their kids.

Males who have had genital surgery have been incarcerated with women since at least 1982.
Heather Mason first encountered a male without surgery in a women's jail in 2015, after Ontario passed the Human Rights Bill allowing males into women's prison.

In 2017, Canadian federal prisons also allowed males to be housed in women's prisons.
The Ontario provincial jails still kept men in a separate section in the women's jail, but in the federal prisons, the men were put right on compound with the women.

There was a male sex offender housed across the hall from Heather Mason, who had to be yanked away from watching her being strip-searched.
The female guards were made to strip-search him too, against their will, and he'd always get an erection.

There were one or two more men who were transferred to this women's jail, and all of them were sex offenders.
The guards said this was because they would get beaten up on the men's side, because child abusers and rapists don't fare well there.

So these male sex offenders say they're women, and are transferred over to the women's side of the jail so the men can't get them. But: they're not getting beaten up by the men because they're "trans women" but because they're "rape hounds and diddlers".

Heather: "Like, if you have a skinbeef, you're not safe."

OK I had to look up 'skinbeef'.

When Heather got transferred to federal prison in December 2017, the women warned her to stay away from a male prisoner named "Judy".

Heather: What, we have a MAN here with us?
The women: Yeah, but you can't call him a man, you have to say he's a woman.

"... and you have to use she/her pronouns, or you're going to get in trouble."

This is Canadian Human Rights law, which forces incarcerated women to pretend that the violent male offender they're forced to live with is a woman.

Totally violating the UN Nelson Mandela rules.

Brief interlude to allow us all to re-read the relevant section of the UN Nelson Mandela rules, which Canada is merrily violating:

https://twitter.com/yatakalam/status/1378828393295323146

Heather: "'Judy' was sexually assaulting & harassing the women. He forced himself on one of my friends, pushed her up against the wall, stuck his tongue down her throat. Another one of my friends is a transman, that 'Judy' forced himself on as well."

'Judy' was sent to segregation for 3 days for assaulting women, and then transferred to the structured living environment for women with mental health issues. so they put a male predator in with all the vulnerable women.

Heather then got out and went to a halfway house, where there was another "trans woman". A lot of arguments, a lot of inappropriate stuff.

But they really only started transferring men into women's prison in larger numbers once Heather was already out.

Heather: I had a lot of friends who were sexually harassed and assaulted [by men claiming to be "trans women" in women's prison], and no one wanted to talk about it, none of the staff wanted to talk about it, and I asked why.

Interviewer Colin Wynter: Why is no one reacting?

Heather Mason: Everyone is saying trans women are women, and acting as if there's no difference between a male who says he's a woman, and an actual female.

Heather Mason: Also, I find a lot of Canadians, specifically women, are really timid & meek. Another difference between men & women in the prison system is women don't tell. They don't utilize the grievance system, they don't make human rights complaints.

Whereas the men, they utilize that. They're constantly putting in grievances and human rights complaints, they're suing - they're using all the avenues that are available to them, more so than women. The women just kind of stay quiet about it.

Heather: And then when they do tell, nothing happens because nobody seems to believe women.

An example: Steven Mehlenbacher, a male in the women's prison will be on trial for criminal harassment and sexual assault charges this fall. But he continues to act with impunity because "trans women" are untouchable.

Brief interlude on Steven Mehlenbacher, 2013 and 2020.

How it started How it's going

Correctional Services Canada (CSC) doesn't know how to proceed with "trans women" because they probably fear getting sued or getting human rights complaints if they don't treat males who demand it as women. So the men get away with what they're doing.

Heather:
Another thing: the toxic relationships many incarcerated women had with men on the outside through being prostituted, drug use, a lifetime of abuse; and the power these men have over these women - that SAME thing is now happening inside.

So there are these little groups and cliques (of women) forming around these guys, and there are heterosexual relationships going on inside. So (the men) have protection there.

So when they sexually assault another woman, then that woman is not going to speak out because she's scared of that clique that's forming around these men.
So that's creating these complex dysfunctional relationships and...it's abuse.

Heather: So the men [in women's prison] have all the power over women, who have not even begun to heal.

In marginalized communities such as Indigenous women, 91% are victims of physical or sexual abuse. We don't have trauma counselling in prison.

So the women are literally going from an abusive situation on the outside to an abusive situation on the inside.
And there's nobody to turn to to ask for help because anyone who speaks up or says anything is labelled bigoted or transphobic, and they just want to be nice.

[tbc]
In the meantime, go follow & support the amazing @Mason134211f, who is single-handedly doing the work that SHOULD be done by members of parliament, government, lawyers, judges, correctional service administrators, journalists, women's organizations & human rights defenders.

@Mason134211f And watch the protest here.

There really should be thousands of people protesting against this massive human rights violation that Canada is inflicting on women.

#KeepPrisonsSingleSex #NelsonMandelaRules

https://twitter.com/wethefemalescan/status/1429180926022586383