Matthew's accommodation (John Grayson)
I was talking to Paul, an asylum seeker from the Middle East in a G4S house in a working class suburb of Sheffield. Paul told me that one of his neighbours was a transgender woman whom G4S had placed in the all-male flats, forcing her to share a bedroom with a young Muslim man. The woman had been teased as a ‘man woman’ but not apparently disliked or harassed.
Perhaps the Home Office and G4S were following the example of the Prison Service, which has placed trans-gender women in all-male prisons? One, Vicky Thompson, aged 21, was recently found dead at Armley jail in Leeds, after apparently telling friends she would kill herself if sent there. The Prison Service argues it is ‘legal status’ ,not the assumed gender which determines treatment. G4S had apparently gone one better than the Prison Service by insisting that a transgender woman had to share a bedroom with a man.
