Question reference: S5W-26838
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 6 January 2020
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 20 January 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how many times prisoners who have been accommodated according to their self-declared identity under the Scottish Prison Service Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy have been moved from a (a) women’s to a men’s and (b) men’s to a women’s prison, also broken down by how many of these moves were at a prisoner’s request.
Answer
I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:
SPS is currently unable to provide information on transgender people who are no longer in our care.
However, I can advise that on Wednesday 8 January 2020 there were 14 people in Scottish prisons identifiable on the Prisoner Records System as having, at some stage, engaged in the gender reassignment process. This number includes 3 people who had previously began the gender reassignment process but who now identify as the gender they were assigned at birth.
Following a careful consideration of risk, 2 transwomen currently in SPS care have been moved from the women’s estate to the men’s. On both occasions these relocations were aligned to the expressed desire of the individual’s concerned. One transman has been moved from the men’s estate to the women’s. However, this relocation was not aligned with their expressed desire.