Sexual Offenses Are More Common Among Transwomen Than Men
And no, we're not talking about prostitution. We need to talk about what this means for single-sex spaces.
No good progressive wants to be a pearl-clutcher. We all want to be open-minded, inclusive, and kind. We’ve been taught that shaming people for their sexual behavior is a bad thing — and indeed I have no wish to shame anyone. Like anything else people might privately do with their bodies, I’d like to remain oblivious to it. When it comes to other people’s toileting habits, their toenail-clipping routines, or their sexual activities, if it doesn’t affect me personally, I’m just not interested.
What’s more, those of us who have been bold enough to suggest that there are some problems with our modern Western notion of “trans identity” are typically very careful to add the obvious: that everyone deserves respect, kindness, and fair treatment. To say that trans identification is a cultural muddle resulting in medical and emotional harm is not at odds with the truth that people deserve to present themselves how they wish, to be happy, and to thrive.
But even those of us who are outspoken about the problems posed by 21st century trans identity tend to shy away from some of the more controversial fringes of this topic, and one of those fringes is the undeniable fact that “transwomen” are more likely to be sexual offenders compared to men.
No good progressive wants to be the pearl-clutching prude to say so. No good progressive wants to suggest that the issue of “including” male-bodied people in women’s spaces is (sometimes) more complex than “They just want to pee!”
The issue is more complex. We need to say so, and we need to discuss it.
First, the Obvious: Not All Transwomen
Duh, but I guess we need to say it: Whatever information this post presents about averages and trends, it doesn’t apply to all transwomen.
Ask yourself why women have often had spaces apart from men. Is it because all men are dangerous predators? Does any woman think that?
No. It is because a very small number of men are dangerous predators. The existence of a very small number of dangerous predators has justified keeping all men out and maintaining single-sex spaces for women. Non-predatory men understand that they are not being personally excluded, insulted, or suspected of being predatory — all men are excluded to keep women safer from the predatory few.
No: Not all transwomen are predators.
A Male Pattern of Criminality
Nevertheless, male-bodied people who identify as transwomen retain a male pattern of criminality. The linked article describes a study in which the results, for both violent and non-violent crime, were that male-born people who transitioned to become transwomen “had a significantly increased risk for crime compared to female controls…but not compared to males…. This indicates that they retained a male pattern regarding criminality.”
What does that mean? Essentially it means that even after transition, people who were born male continue to commit crimes at much higher rates, as if they were still part of the group “men.”
Is this a big difference, though? Yes. If you compare men and women (not considering trans people):
“Gender is the single best predictor of criminal behavior: men commit more crime, and women commit less. This distinction holds throughout history, for all societies, for all groups, and for nearly every crime category. The universality of this fact is really quite remarkable, even though many tend to take it for granted.”
If I were in a pedantic mood, I’d say that sex and not gender is the single biggest predictor of criminal behavior, since we just saw above that male-bodied people with a feminine gender identity commit crimes similar to men.
But It’s Worse Than That: Sexual Crimes Are More Common Among Transwomen Than Men
In both the UK and the US, government data of transwomen in custody show that trans prisoners are much more likely to have committed sexual crimes compared to men.
For example, this BBC news article reports on the Ministry of Justice’s numbers. Among all prisoners in the UK, 19% have committed a sexual crime. Among trans prisoners, 60 of 125 (nearly half) have committed a sexual crime. And no, these were not trans prostitutes:
“Of the 60 serving time for sexual offences:
27 were convicted of rape (plus a further five of attempted rape)
13 were convicted of possessing, distributing or making indecent images of children
13 were convicted of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault
Nine were convicted of causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity
Seven were convicted of sexual activity with a child
Seven were convicted of indecent assault or gross indecency
Those numbers add up to more than 60 because some prisoners are serving time for more than one offence.”
In the US, data obtained from the Bureau of Prisons regarding federal prisoners tells a similar story. The percentages of US federal inmates who are there for sexual offenses is as follows:
General population: 11.2%
Trans-identified male-to-female (“transwoman”): 48.5%
Trans-identified female-to-male (“transman”): 4.7%
Again, we see nearly half of transwomen in custody have committed sexual crimes.
Walking a Fine Line
While it would be incorrect and needlessly stigmatizing to believe that every transwoman is a sexual predator (again I say: duh), it would be equally incorrect and needlessly endangering to pretend transwomen are never sexual predators, that every last one of them innocently “just wants to pee” — and yet, what seems to be expected from progressives and anyone who wishes not to be perceived as a bigot is a firm and absolute denial that people with penises pose any danger at all.
Because this is the expected progressive viewpoint, there is a growing trend in the West to allow people with penises into women’s spaces, with predictable results. Here are a few outcomes:
Karen White, a “transwoman” prisoner with a penis in the UK, was convicted of sexually assaulting women in prison.
Darren Merager, a “transwoman” in LA who’d been a registered sex offender since 2006, was charged in 2021 with 5 felonies for indecent exposure following an incident at Wi Spa in Los Angeles. At first, the five women who complained about his semi-erect penis were told they were being “transphobic”—until Merager’s lengthy criminal history was revealed.
Nine women in Fresno, California, signed onto a federal lawsuit against Naomi House, a women’s shelter, because they said they were forced to shower with a “transgender” woman who made “lewd and sexually inappropriate comments” and “leered at them while they were naked.”
Jakob “Dakota” Nieves, a young “transwoman” who advocated for accessing women’s spaces, was arrested for sexual crimes involving a 4-year-old, and Nieves subsequently pled guilty “to two counts of sexual exploitation of children, one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.”
A high schooler in Loudon County — who was male-bodied but wore a skirt and used the girls’ bathroom — was found guilty of sexually assaulting two girls at two different high schools and is now registered as a sexual offender.
A “transwoman” sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in the women’s toilets in a grocery store in the UK. “Just weeks earlier she had targeted another young girl as she used the toilet at [a different store].”
It’s a Problem
Whatever we might speculate about the reasons that “transwomen” retain patterns of male criminality and seem especially likely to commit sexual crimes — because I don’t know the answers to those questions — the problem remains:
People with penises (whether they are truly “transgender” or not) sometimes commit sexual crimes in women’s spaces. There is a reason that we created penis-free spaces for women, and it seems to be a problem that we are letting people with penises into the spaces.
If your argument is “My friend is a very nice transwoman, and she’s OK,” that’s not going to help solve the problem: the predators exist. Most people are not burglars, but we lock our doors. Most men are not rapists, but we don’t let them into our spas, bathrooms, changing rooms, and prisons.
What do we do with this problem? How do we solve it? Being polite and ignoring the problem harms women and children. Being completely inflexible doesn’t provide an option that “transwomen” find acceptable.
My bias is clear (even though my intentions are pure—I want fairness for everyone), and I don’t see a way around this problem. On one hand, you’re looking at the harm of women and children — people who in no way chose their status — which can happen when people with penises have access to their spaces. On the other hand, you’re balancing that against that the displeasure / discomfort of a group of people who would prefer access to women’s spaces.
It’s not an easy problem, and it’s clear in which direction my sympathies lie. What do you think?
It's entirely possible that transwomen commit sexual violence more frequently than other males. But the data you cite don't tell us anything about transwomen in general; they only tell us about transwomen in prison. It could be the case, for instance, that transwomen commit non-sex crimes at lower rates than other males but sex crimes at the same rates. It could also be that males in prison for sex crimes are more likely to claim a trans identity in the hopes of getting transferred to a woman's prison, either for nefarious reasons (access to women in prison) or self-protection (recognition of the higher risk that other male prisoners might commit violence against them). Both of those situations are consistent with the data you cite. It's just hard to know what fraction of transwomen commit sex crimes, because our estimates of their population are so uncertain.
That said, I share your concern about transwomen in women's prisons. My preferred solution is to construct separate wings of men's prisons for any males at higher risk of violence from other prisoners. Transwomen, feminine gay men, disabled men, and older men can all be housed in those wings. This solution balances women's safety with transwomen's safety and has the additional benefit of making other groups safer.
I've been waiting for someone to write this article in a shareable form that doesn't come off as paranoid and hysterical so I can share it and hopefully help some of my "good progressive" friends to think more critically about this issue. Thank you!
A couple years ago, I was explaining to a good friend, some of the issues around gender ideology, including that transIDed males were being transferred to women's prisons; I was highlighting the fact that sexual predators aren't likely to have a problem "identifying as female" if it gives them access to victims. She turned white and said, "this sounds like my brother" who, I didn't know until this conversation, had been in and out of prison for sexual assault and who liked to wear dresses when he wasn't incarcerated. Have we really come to believe that those men--who likely had difficult childhoods and do indeed deserve "fair treatment"--should be allowed access to spaces that are designed to offer safety from assault for women and children? Have we forgotten the fetishes of flashing and intimidating those physically weaker than than the offender? How do we not see that by throwing the door open to any one who claims to be a woman normalizes men coming and going and puts women and children in danger? The reasonable transsexuals that I follow seem to totally understand this; anyone with a penis who is insistent on access to women's spaces is suspect in my opinion.