Trans women in female jails policy lawful, High Court rules

R(FDJ) v Secretary of State for Justice [2021] EWHC 1746 (Admin)

This case concerned the lawfulness of the Secretary of State’s policies on the care and management of trans prisoners in England and Wales.  Killian Moran and Bethany Jackson acted for the Intervener in this case, Dr Sarah Lamble, a member of the Bent Bars Collective. The purpose of the intervention was to raise concerns that some of the arguments put forward in the case were reliant on unreliable evidence and unsound statistical claims about trans prisoners. There were also concerns that these incorrect claims would perpetuate harmful and damaging stereotypes about trans prisoners specifically and trans people more generally.

The Court agreed that the statistics presented by the parties were “unsatisfactory”. The arguments presented involved a “misuse of the statistics” which were “an unsafe basis for general conclusions” as to the risk posed by transgender prisoners generally. The Court also found that there is no obligation to make use of the single sex exemptions found at Schedule 3 of the Equality Act 2010. These are discretionary and do not have to be used generally or in any particular case.  This has wider implications for trans inclusion in society.

The Bent Bars Project released a statement on this case which can be found here https://www.bentbarsproject.org/news/high-court-issues-decision-on-trans-prisoner-policy-case

The case has received national media attention – BBC, Telegraph, Guardian and Pink News.