Prison bosses have been slammed after admitting a halfway house to get women ready for release could host trans prisoners.
Campaigners claimed housing “prisoners of the male sex” at the Bella Centre in Dundee would be harmful to females living there.
The newly completed community custodial unit will house up to 16 low-risk offenders.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said decisions on the accommodation of transgender people within the prison estate were made on an “individualised basis” and informed “by a multi-disciplinary assessment of both risk and need”.
He added trans women would be considered for the new unit. But Dr Kate Coleman, of the Keep Prisons Single Sex campaign, said the “inclusion of prisoners of the male sex will be to the detriment of women”.
Coleman, who has submitted evidence to the SPS’s review of its transgender prisoner policy, said: “All research points to the need for female offenders to have single-sex services and spaces if they are to have the best chance at meaningful and lasting rehabilitation.
“No service for vulnerable women offenders can be trauma-informed if it may also be used by offenders of the male sex.
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