Mail article - Judges are ordered to allow transgender defendants to be addressed as the gender of their choice during court appearances

Kaitlin - I think ones birth gender used to be included in the Bounty bags.

Snort.

Dodo - no, that would be a legal and political nightmare. Allowing a court official to re-write a witness statement would totally, and I really mean totally, undermine the freedom and independence of our judicial system.

I can't stress strongly enough the extent to which this would undermine the principles of a free and fair judicial system. I do not use these words lightly because I know how many people died under these regimes, but this really would be sleepwalking into a Stalinist/Maoist nightmare.

Lizzie - it’s a good preface to highlight to the possibly-unaware judge why this might be a problem, but I’m still stuck on why the eff women should have to.

Surely a person’s perception of a defendant is relevant to their evidence on the whole, ie if there’s any doubt they have the right person? If you’re verbally struggling or stuttering over pronouns you’re going to look like you don’t have a clear recollection of what happened and will be treated as a less credible witness. It’s intimidating enough to give evidence in court, particularly in cases of rape and sexual assault, without putting up this barrier.

Kaitlin - I think ones birth gender used to be included in the Bounty bags.

I think the victim should be able to ask to give their testimony in their own words, and that a court clerk write it down and change the pronouns afterwards.

Like another poster above, I couldn't cope on the fly with trying to use declaredgenderwrongsex pronouns throughout.

Do we have a birth gender? Is it different from our sex at birth? If so, who decides it and how?

I also wonder if a victim should be advised to state at the beginning of their evidence, something like :
When this attack took place, the defendant presented to me as male, they were dresses as a male, had male biology, spoke as a male, and attacked me as a male can only do. I have thought about this attack for many hours since it happened, I always think of the defendant as male. I am very concerned, under the present rules, that I will 'misgender' the defendant, therefore I am afraid to speak. Can the judge advise me as to how to proceed with telling the truth, without getting into trouble myself.

Great idea. I’m not very articulate at writing letters but would be happy to co-sign in my real name.

This is another one for the regulatory capture thread.

Should we write to the Victims' Commissioner?

Excellent idea.

Email address: [email protected]

Should we write to the Victims' Commissioner?

So, which organisation is behind the Equal Treatment Bench Book?

And how are judges being 'ordered to allow defendants to self identify'? By whom?

All the rights to the defendant and none to the victim.

I see parallels with a particular political and interrogation technique. Compelling others to repeat your lies is a well-established interrogation technique that is designed to break the spirit of those being interrogated. It's also a means to assert dominance over subordinates.

Cialdini and various social psychologists argue that when individuals can be coerced into abandoning their integrity by being compelled to repeat untruths they can then be bound to the coercive force by a need for consistency, mixed with shame and complicity.

Jacob T. Levy's piece about Authoritarianism and Post-Truth Politics highlighted this:
[The] great analysts of truth and speech under totalitarianism—George Orwell, Hannah Arendt, Vaclav Havel—can help us recognize this kind of lie for what it is. Sometimes—often—a leader with authoritarian tendencies will lie in order to make others repeat his lie both as a way to demonstrate and strengthen his power over them.

Saying something obviously untrue, and making your subordinates repeat it with a straight face in their own voice, is a particularly startling display of power over them. It’s something that was endemic to totalitarianism.

niskanencenter.org/blog/authoritarianism-post-truth-politics/

What will this do the perception of the impartiality of the law when it might well see that a courtroom can be exploited as a bubble of irrationality when everybody is conforming to the demands on one person? We've seen this with some civil suits but for it to be brought into criminal courts may well erode confidence in our criminal justice system.

The defendant is now not only entitled to their own opinion, but their own facts.

If this applies to witnesses - has an equality assessment been done? I was once called to court to give evidence for my own sexual assault. I wouldn’t have been able to do so if I’d had to call the defendant ‘she’. I am autistic and my brain cannot process the cognitive dissonance. I just would not have been able to speak.

I’d also never lie under oath because I believe truth is the foundation of the justice system and I try and have personal integrity.

Forcing victims and witnesses to lie under oath doesn't seem like an appropriate way for courts to proceed.

Exactly. I wonder what would happen if a victim stated in the witness stand that they believed the defendant was male

I hope the next victim of a male bodied person who want's to be addressed as a female bodied person does this. Once the oath is taken it should be referred to when using the correct pronouns that describe the victim's real life experience.

We need our own version of Press for Change.

Something like Press for Reality should cover it.

Such gas lighting bullshit - how does this fit with taking an oath to tell the whole truth? It's compelled lying, what happens if someone refuses to lie under oath despite being directed by the court to do so?

The rules, published in a new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book

Anything in that book about a victim’s right to describe reality and their experience of being a victim of crime intheir own words? Or does “equal treatment” only apply to offenders?

What if I said my gender was a Martian or I said I was the queen

Ffs

Have people lost their brains

What the bloody hell are they thinking?

They're not thinking. And that's the problem.

It’s just bollocks. Ffs

Asking everyone to lie what is that about.

Pure fantasy

Been reading Harry Potter and think this quote is apt:

“Dumbledores refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.”

So, basically, a rapist bloke can magically self-identify the night before the court case begins and everyone - including his victim - has to call him she.

This is just awful. What the bloody hell are they thinking?

Forcing victims and witnesses to lie under oath doesn't seem like an appropriate way for courts to proceed.

Exactly. I wonder what would happen if a victim stated in the witness stand that they believed the defendant was male.

So, basically, a rapist bloke can magically self-identify the night before the court case begins and everyone - including his victim - has to call him she.

Fabulous.

Ella Davies/ Daniel Reed, possessor and distributor of child rape images, seems to have pretty much done this.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3591075-Ella-Davies-Daniel-Reed