Prison governors warned last night that transferring sex offenders who are born male but believe they are female into women’s jails could lead to vulnerable inmates being attacked.

The jail chiefs spoke out following Theresa May’s pledge last year to make it simpler to change gender, and to ‘streamline and demedicalise’ the process.

Transgender activists are demanding a change in the law so that anyone can do this simply by announcing they ‘self-identify’ as a member of the opposite sex.

Paul Banfield, found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl of 17 in Shrewsbury and breaching a subsequent restraining order, identifies as a woman

But one governor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: ‘My fear is that this could make it much harder to control the transfer of born-male, transgender prisoners to women’s prisons.

‘This could lead to vulnerable women being intimidated – and even attacked.’

The warning came as the Ministry of Justice confirmed that dozens of ‘trans-identified male’ prisoners are living as women in jails exclusively housing convicted sex offenders.

The figures, which emerged in new Freedom of Information Act disclosures, show:

At least 34 male-born inmates are living as women in four specialist sex offender jails for men – Littlehey, Isle of Wight, Whatton and Stafford;

A further ten prisoners may be housed at sex offender prisons Bure, Rye Hill and Ashfield;

Governors of sex offender prisons say ‘all or most’ of their transgender inmates are seeking to move to women’s jails;

In at least one prison, this group includes a prisoner convicted of multiple, separate rapes.

Davina Ayrton, who was jailed for eight years in 2016 for raping a girl of 15 in 2004 when called David

Andrea Albutt, president of the Prison Governors Association, who has managed men’s and women’s jails, said: ‘I have seen women feeling very threatened by transgender prisoners’ presence.

‘Women prisoners are very vulnerable. A lot have abusive men in their lives, who are part of the reason they have ended up in prison.

'To put all men who declare they are women into women’s prisons would be very damaging.

‘You do get trans prisoners who are going through the [transition] process who still look very masculine – they look like men with long hair and make-up.

'They don’t look feminine, and if they are 6ft 2in they are very scary. At the same time, they could be objects of ridicule to women.

'And if you are living as a woman before the change, walking around a landing in a men’s prison in a dress and make-up, that will be difficult.’

The new figures reveal that in April last year there were 100 transgender inmates in men’s prisons, and 25 in women’s.

It is known that some transgender women convicted for sex crimes as men have already been moved to women’s jails.

They include Jessica Winfield, who as Martin Ponting was jailed for life in 1995 for raping both an underage girl and the disabled daughter of a family friend.

David Davies, Conservative MP for Monmouth, said: ‘The Freedom of Information disclosures confirm my worst fears.

‘If self-identification happens, there will be men who will use it to get into places where women deserve security.

‘If someone with a penis is incarcerated, they should be in a man’s prison.’

Prison reformer Frances Crook said that she was worried that ‘some men with a history of extreme violence and sexual violence against women have found a new way of exercising aggression towards women’.

A cell at Bronzefield Prison in Surrey, a women-only jail run by the French firm Sodexo

Ms Crook, executive director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, added: ‘These men are not transitioning because they like women and want to be a woman, but in order to exert a new kind of control and dominance over women, a sort of infiltration.

‘Moreover, the process is inherently discriminatory. A woman identifying as a man could not be transferred to a man’s jail because placing a person with female attributes into a prison to live with 1,000 men, all using communal showers and living areas, would put them in serious danger.’

The Ministry of Justice refuses to say how many of the 25 transgender prisoners in women’s jails – almost double previous estimates – were born men, and how many were women identifying as men.

Last night, it again refused to release this information, claiming it does not hold this data – although there are transgender inmates in just seven women’s prisons.

The ministry has confirmed there are no female-born transgender inmates in men’s jails.

It also refuses to state how many of the prisoners given transfers have gone through a full, surgical transition.

Research cited by transgender lobby groups suggests that just 20 per cent of male-born transsexuals get any medical treatment, of which only a small minority have male genitals removed.

Another governor said: ‘There are cases of men who identify as women who it is appropriate to hold in a women’s prison.

‘My concern is the transgender prisoners who are effectively intact men who are trying to transfer simply to have access to women.’

At present, a transgender male-born prisoner can only move to a women’s jail if she has a Gender Recognition Certificate, which requires a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and at least two years of living as a woman, or after being certified by a special prison service panel.

However, if the Prime Minister’s comment leads to legal self-identification, these protections will be much weaker.

Dr Nicola Williams, of Fair Play for Women, who filed the Freedom of Information Act requests, added: ‘A change in the law could take away the ability of prisons to make a judgment about whether a transfer is appropriate.

‘And the Ministry of Justice’s continuing refusal to provide basic facts is outrageous. How can we have the debate we need without them?’

Full details of the FOI disclosures are on the group’s website.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: ‘We work to manage transgender prisoners safely, sensitively and in line with the law – but robust safeguards exist to prevent abuse of this system.’

Think it couldn't happen? Trans inmates ALREADY intimidate women By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday It wasn't hard to spot the transgender inmate. At Bronzefield Prison in Surrey, a women-only jail run by the French firm Sodexo, Jessica Winfield was sporting stubble. Tall, broad and muscular, says a recent visitor to the prison, she was wearing a ‘big flowery dress’, make-up and a long blonde wig. But in every other way, ‘she came across as a man’. Craig Hauxwell (left as Lisa) was jailed for 14 years for raping two teenage girls and seven indecent assaults Worryingly, a second visitor says the other prisoners, who were, of course, women, ‘seemed scared of her’, adding: ‘We were in a communal area, and everyone else was mingling and chatting, but they were leaving her well alone.’ Their unease had an obvious reason. Jessica Winfield had been a man called Martin Ponting, and was convicted and sentenced to life for brutally raping two females – one an underage child, the other the disabled daughter of a family friend. His crimes must have been exceptionally serious: he was sentenced in 1995, and it is highly unusual for anyone to spend 23 years in prison for rape. Moreover, before moving to Bronzefield in 2016, Winfield was held at Whitemoor, a Category A, high-security prison reserved for the most dangerous male inmates. A male visitor who encountered Winfield at Bronzefield says: ‘I felt her presence in a women’s prison was itself an act of aggression, a way of exercising power and domination. To me, the other inmates seemed terrified.’ Ten years before moving to Bronzefield, Winfield was already identifying as a woman, telling a prison newspaper she was having ‘a hard time because of my sexuality’. Reportedly, she has had surgery, though it is not clear how extensive this has been: only 20 per cent of born-male transsexuals have either hormone or surgical treatment, of which only a small minority will have their male genitals removed. But even those who do can pose problems. Prison Governors Association president Andrea Albutt said: ‘In one prison we had a transgender prisoner who had gone through the full process. 'Sometimes she was very feminine. At other times, she was aggressive, masculine, very destabilising; very macho, and she had to be put in segregation.’ Freedom of Information disclosures confirm that men’s prisons contain dozens of transgender inmates convicted for violent and sexual offences committed when they were men – among them Davina Ayrton, jailed for eight years in 2016 for raping a girl of 15 in 2004 when called David. The Transcrimeuk website says that in 2016, 12 born-male transsexuals were convicted of sexual crimes against children, seven of sex attacks on adults, as well as one murder and one attempted murder. Some were convicted after identifying as women, such as Paul Banfield, found guilty of sexually assaulting a girl of 17 in Shrewsbury and breaching a subsequent restraining order, and Alice Smith, who downloaded child pornography. Craig Hauxwell was jailed for 14 years for raping two teenage girls and seven indecent assaults. He committed his crimes 2001 and 2002 in County Durham, but by the time of his 2016 trial, was identifying as a woman called Lisa. After his conviction he went on the run but was later apprehended. Ross Florida was jailed in Somerset in 2007 for raping two boys and a girl. He changed gender in prison, but after release was convicted as Nicola Florida in 2016 of breaching a protection order when she tried to get photographs of one of her victims developed. Advertisement

Facts aren't transphobic, so why the secrecy?

Comment by Nicola Williams for The Mail on Sunday

I'm a scientist, so facts matter to me.

The group I help run, Fair Play for Women, uses hard data and proven facts to defend women and their rights.

I became interested in the topic of transgender prisoners after reading about a few extreme cases.

It seemed clear that allowing male sex offenders to change their birth certificate to female and become eligible to live in a female prison could expose women to real danger.

Female prisoners are vulnerable. Many have suffered male violence or sexual abuse as children. Many have attempted suicide and self-harm.

Yes, they have committed crimes – mostly non-violent – but that doesn’t mean it’s OK to expose them to sexual violence.

But if, as the Prime Minister has suggested, the law is changed so that any man who chooses to say ‘I am a woman now’ gains the right to be transferred to a women’s prison, female inmates would have no choice but to be imprisoned with potentially predatory, sexually violent males.

This is an important issue.

Yet when we asked the Ministry of Justice for the facts the public needs, such as the type of offences committed by transgender inmates, we drew a blank.

Even my MP was stonewalled when he raised a parliamentary question.

If the authorities wouldn’t produce the data, we would have to find it ourselves.

That meant reading public records for every UK prison. Our volunteers combed through hundreds of documents.

Finally, late last year, we had some answers: the first snapshot of transgender offenders.

We discovered that a high proportion of transgender prisoners are housed in sex offender institutions or high-security prisons.

In other words, many have already proven themselves to be violent, abusive and potentially dangerous.

Yet they could become eligible for transfer to women’s prisons under the regime of sex self-identification Theresa May has suggested.

Some trans activists claimed our figures were false. So we fought on, using the Freedom of Information Act.

Six months later the Ministry of Justice has vindicated our figures – a process that should have taken 28 working days.

Yet, yesterday the Ministry was still hinting to reporters that our survey was somehow unreliable.

We carried on because women in jail have a right to demand that the proposed policy of ‘self-identified sex’ considers the impact on them, too.

We believe this issue needs to be discussed rationally. Data isn’t ‘transphobic’, facts aren’t ‘bigoted’.

But it’s incontrovertible that men convicted of abusing women have already broken the rules. Why would anyone want to make it easier for them to do it again?