As little sympathy as I normally hold for any Jan 6 rioters, it is downright cruel to house her in a male prison. From what I've been able to suss out, she has been transitioned since at least 2004 when she did her legal name change. This is a person who has fully transitioned and been living as a woman for nearly 2 decades. Even though she is a traitorous piece of crap she deserves fair punishment under the law. To me, being a woman put into a male prison population should be considered cruel and unusual.
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There is unfortunately nothing unusual about prisoners being raped. That's a problem bigger than just Watkins, and the vast majority of America seems to be completely okay with it. Makes me sick.
It's almost a guarantee that she is going to be raped multiple times in a men's prison. And while you could say that she is supporting the people who make this happen, leopards eating faces and all that, and therefore, had it coming... no one deserves this. Being principled means standing for your enemies when it's necessary, even if you know they wouldn't do the same for you.
Does she deserves prison? I mean... I guess, if we think prison is good, then yes? But that's a whole other debate. But I'm seeing it like this: On one hand: It's a Trump supporter dipshit who stormed the fucking capitol and is getting what's coming to them, fuck them. But on the other hand: It's a trans woman being thrown in a men's prison and is therefore going to be raped multiple times and/or be forced to be stuck in solitary the whole time. And that is not ok, at all.
It's also not okay to attempt treason (and be bad at it, too.) She will be in protective solitary confinement and and solitary is where she belongs.
I realize solitary is considered torture, but not too long ago we would just straight up execute treasoners. This is an improvement.
She is being put in prison for insurrection.
She is being put in solitary (which is torture) for being trans.
You are overlooking the part where we normally hang treasoners. It is fantastic for her we didn't just put her around the wall and tell some people to shoot at her. Solitary, for her safety, is a blessing. Nobody who participated in j6 should even be alive for us to speak about right now.
I'm not overlooking anything. I'm against the death penalty on principle.
But also in practice, because it doesn't achieve what its proponents claim.
And saying "we" used to just shoot people for their crimes isn't a convincing argument in itself. "We" also used to lynch black people and electrocute homosexuals.
I don't care. It doesn't make it OK.
Beside, I hate the idea of a citizen committing "treason". I have absolutely no loyalty whatsoever to my country, I just happen to be born there, I didn't chose it, I didn't signed up for it.
In this case sexual assault is almost a guarantee. If for no other reason at all, that one should be enough to warrant her being housed in a women's prison.
I love beehaw. The leftists here are shining examples of how we as a society should behave. We universally distain what she stands for and what she has done, but pretty much all of us advocate for her humane treatment. I am so thankful that I signed up for this instance instead of one of the others.
We're not going to get our wish either way, unfortunately. I very seriously doubt that rape is only commonplace in men's prisons. Our prisons appear to be specifically designed to encourage and maximize prisoners raping each other, because everyone on the outside considers that part of the punishment (“don't drop the soap”).
Your comment made me curious, so I looked it up and found a 2006 study that says you are absolutely correct, inmate-on-inmate sexual violence is almost 4 times higher in women's prisons: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2438589/ I seriously did not expect that.
Wow. I expected it to be lower but still prevalent. Definitely didn't expect it to be four times higher.
The cognitive dissonance of a trans trump supporter blows my mind.
She is a very foolish and hateful person, and to me, very hateful people are usually deeply insecure and fearful individuals. This is why (imo) they are so receptive to cult-like thinking and conspiracy theories. She has done real damage to herself and others by letting her fearful emotions dictate her behavior. Now she's seeing the results of that foolishness, and I think she's realized, at least somewhat, that she fucked up.
Sure, too little too late is real easy to say here (and that was my knee-jerk reaction too) but we've got to keep the door open for the folks who are actually willing, for however briefly, to break away from the cult of hate mindset and ask for help. Like think about watching a cult documentary where you see folks being preyed on and recruited in because of their financial precarity or lack of sustainable support networks. You want those people to escape. If they do heinous shit while in the cult, you want them to experience consequences, but you also want them to escape.
This alt-right shit is just like that, in a way. And we need to support people like this who are trying to escape, even if they fucked up royally during their time with the cult. We don't have to forgive them for their fuck ups, but we do need to leave the door open and show them it doesn't need to be like this. I hate to say it but we need to educate. And yes I'm over having to educate every fucking day of my life but we've got to do it, especially considering states are ripping away any semblance of a balanced, empathetic education right now. A whole generation is being set up to fail and cause harm. We've got to fight back.
I embrace her - not her actions, but her worth as a human being with the capacity and even, it seems, willingness to change. What she did was despicable but she's apologized; she may be lying but I can't know that, so I have to accept her remorse at face value and hope that she follows through.
But the cult is very insidious. If she doesn't receive support now, she'll fall back into that mindset, I guarantee it. Now is the time to be gracious and extend her a hand that, based on her actions, maybe she doesn't deserve. But we need to do it anyway.
She has 8 years to figure that out.
Being LGBT and support this craziness? Maybe she'll need even more time to get it right...
She won't figure shit out in a mens prison. It will be 8 years of torture and trauma.
I'm conflicted about how to react to this. Sticking strictly to reason and compassion, obviously she's a woman and belongs in a women's prison. Yet it would be a lie to say a part of me doesn't have that visceral, emotional "did she really think she was so special that the leopards wouldn't eat her face even though they've been baying for years about all the faces they want to eat?"
I think it's okay to think she's an awful, horrible, stupid human being, but still believe that she has the right to be treated humanely.
Trying to remain sympathetic, but this is exactly what the side she was supporting would've wanted to happen to her. Or worse. Either way, absolute yikes...
Gender identity isn’t something you stop respecting because of a bad take, no matter how bad. She should go to a women’s prison for a long time. But, unless there are people willing to defend a refusal to accept someone’s gender and rape as a de facto punishment for a crime, this is indefensible. It’s extra (and barbaric) punishment because she’s trans. That’s wrong. Period.
Definitely good points made here and I agree, as much as this is a lamf moment, it is right on so many levels to advocate for her humane treatment.
The US prison system can choke on a bunch of dicks. I would not wish that on the worst shit heads because i simply do NOT enjoy rape. Maybe people should think really hard about why they think rape is funny when it happens to bad people. What a wicked and disgustingbsense of justice.
cw: sexual violence
Not only do the more violent incarcerated people rape incarcerated trans people, the fucking prison guards actually "give them over" to said violent prisoners, by knowingly assigning them to a cell together to placate the violent one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_people_in_prison#V-coding
Happens to cis men as well, if you are perceived as effeminate or known to be gay. Donny the Punk (Stephen Donaldson) was a prison reform activist who brought a lot of attention to sexual assault in male prisons.
His Wikipedia page is a tough read, but he is basically one of the first people to organize around this and bring the issue to American consciousness.
Defund the police was a watered down psyop. Abolish prisons and police.