Debate contribution: Custodial Facilities: Protection of Rights and Safety

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 20 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

20 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Custodial Facilities: Protection of Rights and Safety

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4744283

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Before the debate, I, of course, studied the Prison Service guidance. I believe that the author of that guidance, while not agreeing with me on much, would agree that the opening words should be removed from the motion. I say that because the guidance states at paragraph 4:

"Being transgender isn’t the same thing as being lesbian, gay, or bisexual."

In the same paragraph, I read:

"A transgender person can be gay, lesbian, straight, or bisexual, just like someone who’s cisgender. A simple way to think about it is: sexual orientation is about who you want to be with. Gender identity is about who you are."

The core aim of my amendment is to place the focus where it needs to be: on the fact that what we should be addressing today is the rights of women. I see no reason to have to preface a motion before the House that deals with a women's rights issue with material committing our support to other communities, particularly when the policy paper that we are discussing says what I have quoted. While it is interesting to think about what is in the document, it is enlightening to think about what is not in it: the words "woman" or "women" or "girl" and "girls" appear nowhere in it. Today, we rectify that. Today, we give voice to a section of society who, in the race to supposedly embrace a more inclusive future where we must respect —

— every identity, are having their identity erased, so much so that officialdom cannot even define them: women. I will move on. Later, I will give you the opportunity to come in. The right of women to have their own space in the penal system had to be fought for and won. One of the most celebrated champions of female rights in the late 18th and early 19th century was the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry. At a time when women were denied the right to vote, Elizabeth Fry led a national movement demanding change. On 27 February 1818, she became the first woman to give evidence to a Select Committee of the House of Commons. Five years later, her campaigning bore fruit in the form of the Gaols Act 1823. The Act marked the beginning of government efforts to impose general standards in prisons across the whole country. Let me quote one short extract from the Act:

"female prisoners should be kept separately from male prisoners".

The world has moved on in many ways from 1823, and much of that has been progress. The inability of some today to say that a male is and always will be different from a female is not part of that progress. Until 2017, Elizabeth Fry's reforms were recognised as so significant that she was deemed worthy of being depicted on Bank of England £5 notes. Who would have thought that, less than a decade after her face disappeared from the notes in our wallets, the battle that she won would have to be fought all over again? It is incredible that the reforms won by Elizabeth Fry against incredible odds at a time when women were excluded from the democratic process are being disregarded by the Prison Service today because of the unscientific, silly and, frankly, dangerous idea, which is blindly accepted in the guidance, that:

"people’s gender identities can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth."

Would anyone in the Assembly who is prepared to defend that guidance and argue that it is sound like to tell me how many gender identities there are? Before you do, consider that that question is materially relevant to how the guidance operates. In paragraph 7, we read:

"A case specific conference to consider the circumstances of each transgender prisoner will be chaired by the Director of Prisons. Attendees should include the Governor of the prison concerned (of [sic] their nominated deputy) and the Residential Governor. Wherever possible the panel should be gender balanced."

Regina Doherty, when she was leader of Fine Gael in the Seanad, said:

"Generations ago, there were two genders and two sexes. There still are two sexes, but today we probably have around nine genders".

In June 2022, 'The Daily Telegraph' ran a report about an email sent to BBC staff by Global Butterflies, a transgender group that the BBC had drafted in to do training sessions and that, no doubt, was handsomely reimbursed with licence fee payers' money. What did Global Butterflies say? It stated:

"People can self-identify themselves in over 150 ways, and increasing!"

How many genders are there, Minister Long? Are there two? Are there about nine? Are there over 150? It would be interesting if you could give us your position today. If you do not know or refuse to say, how is the guidance fit for purpose? If you accept the ideology that resulted in that guidance being produced, how can you ever say that the panel is, to use the Prison Service's own words, "gender balanced"? This nonsense — I make no apologies for using the term — will always collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. If it were only laughable nonsense, it would not be so serious, but it is serious, Members. Why did Elizabeth Fry champion single-sex prisons? It is because, before she won that victory, women in the prison system were at risk of sexual and physical abuse from men. Now, the Minister will point to paragraph 7, which states that the Northern Ireland Prison Service:

"must ... take into account identified risks, and these must be managed appropriately."

Minister, the risks were identified by Elizabeth Fry. Any rowing back on what she achieved will result in the return of a risk to female prisoners. We do not need panels concerning individual prisoners, convened at public expense, that are, by the definition of the terms they are set up under, inoperable. We need a bit of common sense: men should be detained in male facilities with male staff, and women should be detained in female facilities with female staff.

In September last year, when I raised the issue with the First Minister, I got a dismissive and condescending response that did not address the issue. Whatever the Minister of Justice says about it, the fact remains that in December, as reported by the BBC, a man won a High Court case to be transferred from Maghaberry prison to Hydebank Wood. In January last year, the case of Adam Binnie Bryson, a convicted double rapist, who was held at a women's prison in Scotland —

— caused outrage, as he had been convicted of a crime —.

As I was saying, in January last year, the case of Adam Binnie Bryson, a convicted double rapist who was held at a women's prison in Scotland, caused outrage as he had been convicted of a crime that no woman could commit. Since then, a review has been conducted, which means that transgender prisoners are initially accommodated according to their sex at birth while an assessment is carried out into whether it is more appropriate to house them in a men's prison or a women's prison. The case also prompted action in England and Wales, with regulations being introduced in February 2023 to ban transgender women from being sent to women's prisons if their male genitalia are intact or they are sex offenders The Assembly has an opportunity today to take a stand for common sense, to honour the memory of a trailblazer in the campaign for equality for women and, most importantly, to protect vulnerable women from the risk of abuse. I ask Members to support my amendment.

1,281 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Gender, sexuality, abortion and related social issues

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:46 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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