Can someone explain to to me why this has gone to court? Teenage girl pretending to be a boy.

I'm not sure this lack of penis is quite as sentient as the actual penises you refer to.

I'm sure it's not

Actually I expect that disclosing trans status to a male partner at any stage is dangerous to the trans person. And not disclosing trans status to a female partner is dangerous to the female partner, while disclosing trans status to a female partner isn't dangerous to a trans person.

Although the female partner might then do that terrible dangerous destructive thing called "saying no". A refusal often offends, which is why female partners do need to be aware of a potential partner's trans status before they are alone with them.

The part of my post that was quoted here wasn't clear out of context - too many instances of 'they' and 'them' referring to different parties. The first 'they' (Why on earth do they think that the best course of action) was referring to the LGBT foundation statement quoted in my post:

do trans people actually have the right to hold the details of their trans histories private or must a disclosure happen before engaging in sex with new partners? ... We also know that there have been instances where trans people are met with violence and assault when disclosing their trans status before having sex with a new partner, understandably, many trans people choose to not disclose their trans history.

Nothing to do with penises being in charge. It's the LGBT foundation suggesting that disclosure of sex before a sexual encounter might be dangerous for the trans person, when in fact, from the several murders of transwomen (when a male partner becomes aware of an unexpected penis during sex), it is obviously far more dangerous not to disclose.

And in the cases being discussed here, which are when women have posed as men, it's the lack of a penis which is the issue. I'm not sure this lack of penis is quite as sentient as the actual penises you refer to.

The penis doesn't plan. The penis wants.

Does transplanted arm tissue grow its own willpower - "Take the airpump and inflate me now, you mere human attachment"? Or does being hopped up on anabolic steroids stop people thinking responsibly?

But anyway there don't seem to be any penises or steroids in the Georgia Bilham case. Just belief or entitlement.

You're over analysing. It's simpler.

The penis doesn't plan. The penis wants. The brain is essentially Jeeves to the penis' Wooster. It does its best to mitigate and get out of the situations the penis gets its owner into. But it's not in charge.

Why on earth do they think that the best course of action, if a person might not want to have sex with them if they know the truth, is to withhold the truth?

Seems strange doesn't it. They either are taking the chance that they can get away with it without the other person finding out, or maybe they just think in principle that they are the sex they identify with, and other people don't have any right to know their biology.

I think to get back to the core of the case, it is about deception. Not even whether someone claims they are trans or not.

The problem is that the whole of transgender ideology is based on the 'right' of a transitioning person to deceive everyone else. There are clauses in the GRA about when it is legitimate to disclose that someone has a GRC, which means that there are times when it may be necessary to lie in order to not break the law.

In fact, one of the major reasons for the existence of the GRA was so that a transsexual didn't have to out themself to their employer. Or to put it another way, the reason for the GRA was so that a transsexual person could deceive others about their sex, including their employer.

From the LGBT Foundation article:
The conviction then of Kyran Lee leaves us questioning; do trans people actually have the right to hold the details of their trans histories private or must a disclosure happen before engaging in sex with new partners? We know that trans people face stigma, hate crime and violence at a disproportionate rate. We also know that there have been instances where trans people are met with violence and assault when disclosing their trans status before having sex with a new partner, understandably, many trans people choose to not disclose their trans history.

In the cases that I've read about where a trans person didn't disclose that they were not the sex they appeared to be and violence ensued, it was after sexual activity had taken place, and a heterosexual man felt that he had been duped into having sex with another man. The time to disclose is before sexual activity so that the other person can consent, or decide not to go ahead.

Why on earth do they think that the best course of action, if a person might not want to have sex with them if they know the truth, is to withhold the truth?

the law is under pressure from lobby groups, and we know that the police are also being influenced to interpret the law as certain groups would like it to be - not as it is written.

And as the courts are being asked to interpret the Equality Act not as written but as now preceived by some trans activists

I don't think sex deception should be a defence for violence under any circumstances. I do think people who deceive others into sexual contact should be prosecuted.

Agreed re both points. And it maybe that male violence is one of the reasons trans women dont report, because of the threat of violence.

Agreed. Trans status is completely irrelevant in this situation as the law currently stands, but the law is under pressure from lobby groups, and we know that the police are also being influenced to interpret the law as certain groups would like it to be - not as it is written.

I don't think sex deception should be a defence for violence under any circumstances. I do think people who deceive others into sexual contact should be prosecuted.

I think to get back to the core of the case, it is about deception. Not even whether someone claims they are trans or not.

But was someone decieved into being sexually intimate with someone becasue they genuinely believe that were the sex they said they were.

I thought the legal issue rested on this, as in other cases such as a woman who sued because she only had sex with a man because she thought they were going to be married. (He was lying) And a Palestinian man sued by a Jewish woman for deceiving her.

Isn't this why some trans groups have been so against having a law of sex by deception, as they dont think it is deception to say you are the sex you identify as, and for someone to argue that it is, is saying in legal terms that it is a deceit, ie you cant change sex.

And there have been cases in the US where men who feel they have been deceived by having sex with a trans woman who they accepted as biologically female, have argued that their violent response (ie attacking the trans woman) is a "natural" response, ie mitigating circumstances. (Some have suggested that this violent response by men maybe one of the reasons that trans women working as prostitutes have a right rate of being attacked, and in some instances murdered.)

So it isn't about whether someone genuinely thinks they are male or female, it is about how the person they are interacting with perceives what has happened.

...the LGBT Foundation, which decrees that "the assumption that all men have penises and all women have vaginas" is "transphobic" (thereby radically altering the English language), indirectly receives funding from the UK Government (Equalities Office, via Consortium).

The Tory peer who announced one of these pots of money for purposes including "training", described the beneficiaries as "fantastic organisations".

The dead-headed institutional support for this ideology is a bigger problem than any masked men or blue-hairs shouting abuse at women.

Within the terms of self-id, she was "living as a man". Her 'impersonation' included the use of chest binders, trousers and an artificial penis. It's notable that the press reports use male and neutral pronouns when referring to her role as 'Brummy George'. This seems to reflect the language used in court, including by the victim. Part of her defence was that it was consensual role play (she does not appear to have used a 'genderfluid' defence).

There have been multiple cases of young lesbians 'impersonating' boys or men for sexual purposes. A judge in a similar case some years ago referred to the defendant as an "imaginative and persuasive liar" and sentenced her to 8 years in prison. This sentencing was in sharp contrast to another case in 2014 where the offender said she identified as a man, was not called a "liar", and received a short suspended sentence. The LGBT Foundation's male campaigns manager indicated that the victim's assumption that a man would have a biological penis rather than a vagina, was "transphobic".

This is problematic territory for those who want social gender (ie personal assertion of gender) to trump biological sex - even in cases where the crime itself is of a sexual nature.

Yes, she obviously claimed to the other girl that she was a man. She may not have been claiming that by the time this went to court, but at the time of the offences, she claimed to be a man and we are repeatedly told that people are who they say they are. So at the time of the offences she was a transman because that is what she claimed to be.

Saying that anyone who says they are trans is trans and then trying to shift the goalposts when someone claiming to be trans commits an offence is all a bit Nicola Sturgeon and her 'rapist gender'.

I thought the whole point of the prosecution was that she did claim to be a man?

Of course it's the case. The victim says that she didn't know the accused was female when she was penetrated with a dildo and therefore wasn't giving informed consent.

The court decided that the evidence presented by the prosecution suggested she was lying (presumably assuming internal homophobia/homophobic pressure from relatives/regret).

This is the way it goes in every sexual assault/rape case. Evidence is presented to show the victim to be a liar and in this case it was successful on the most serious charges.

"She was cleared of the more serious charges because the court didn't believe the victim."

From what I've read, that doesn't seem to be exactly the case:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/14/georgia-bilham-woman-accused-of-posing-as-male-found-guilty-of-sexual-assault-by-kissing
"... after a crash in Bilham’s car, the victim saw her driving licence when it was shown to police and it had clearly said “Georgia”.
The complainant texted her that evening, asking: “Answer this with yes or no: are you a girl? And if you are a girl, why the fuck have you lied all this time?”
Bilham said she assumed from that point the game was up, but continued to pretend to be George after the crash....
...the pair continued to see each other and the relationship turned sexual, the court heard."

It would have been vanishingly unlikely for her to have been prosecuted for kissing alone. She was cleared of the more serious charges because the court didn't believe the victim.

As has been mentioned below, there have been cases of men using sex by deception by transwomen as a defence for violence.

These are complex crimes with layers of cultural norms and prejudice to unpick - on both sides.

i literally don’t understand how this case fits in with the current TRA ideological capture across the country. Say a trans identified biological male who has had excellent feminisation surgery but kept their penis kisses somebody and that somebody believes they are genuinely female - based on this case that is now sexual assault.

Sure there should be hundreds of these cases going through the courts.

Yet somehow it’s in the public interest to prosecute in this one particular case where the perpetrator happens to be female.

Sex by deception invalidates consent whoever is responsible and should be prosecuted. The disproportionate number of women prosecuted is a different issue - perhaps down to the difficulty of men passing?

But she was. That’s the whole point. She was claiming to be a man, therefore she was a transman. Whether she used that word or not, that is what she was doing.

She admitted she was pretending. It's not a trans thing. No idea how this would've gone if she did say she was trans.

It's likely that it would have made no difference. Kyran Lee, Tarjit Singh and Carlos Delacruz all identify as transmen and all were convicted of sexual offences against women who believed they were men.

This is why.

• Bilham replied: "I don't even dress like a lad, it just took over my life." Bilham admitted pretending to be George saying she got trapped in a "web of lies".*

She admitted she was pretending. It's not a trans thing. No idea how this would've gone if she did say she was trans.

I do wonder if the justice system just wants women in jail to keep up their funding cos there's not enough of them

It’s not about Georgia. It’s about the victim, who was not offered the information in order to decide whether to consent. The victim consented to sex with a male. Not consent with a female.

I don't understand why this has gone to court either as surely Georgia was claiming to be a boy at the relevant time and, as we all know, anyone claiming to be of one sex or the other (regardless of biological facts) has to be believed, respected, and treated as their claimed sex. We have seen this working for males telling us they are female so why doesn't it work from the female to male side of things, such as this case? Georgia is Georgia now but she was once George, therefore anything George did or said as George was fine and dandy?

Thanks for those links @OldCrone I stand corrected.

I wonder if Delacruz and Singh would have been convicted if they'd had a phalloplasty and passed it off as a penis.