Trans activists hold “noise demo” to show solidarity with Zoe Watts, a trans woman currently being held in a male prison wing

Words and pictures by Milo Chandler – http://IMDmilo.com

Within the bastions of the almost 1,000-year-old Lincoln Castle, a group of trans activists held a ‘noise demo’ to show solidarity with Zoe Watts, a trans woman currently being held in a male prison wing.

Standing outside the castle, activists chanted, cheered and let off horns as the prison van containing Watts departed the medieval structure.

At the ‘noise demo’, there were a number of speeches aimed to highlight the situation Zoe is in and to demand the prison service move Watts to a women’s prison wing.

Watts, a former PCSO, has been allegedly kept in her cell for “23 and half hours a day” over concerns for her safety in the male wing at HMP Peterborough despite having a gender-recognition certificate, meaning she should be legally be recognised as female in the UK.

According to the Justice4ZoeWatts campaign the prison service was now further debating “whether to move her to the male mental-health unit or in with the male sex offenders.” This is despite on previous prison stays being able to mix freely with other woman seemingly with no issue.

On the legal case, Watts, 38, is charged with possessing a firearm when prohibited for five years, possession of a firearm without a certificate and manufacturing a firearm.

Her lawyers asked the court for charges not to be put to the defendant until tests had been carried out on an item the police had seized.

The judge agreed to the request and Watts was remanded back into custody and will face the court again on the February 13.