CPS change the proposed 'sex by deception re gender' legal guidance

I would hope so Empress, but I don't have much confidence in that.

And do you remember the couple of lesbians who were so scared of rejection from their group that they ended up going through unwanted sex with a male because they feared that it would get around that they 'rejected them'. I would hope that any person who said no would not have their rejection used against them, but sadly, we know some people would. Because when those lesbians did tell their friends, they lost those friends any way because they confessed they were traumatised by the sex they had.

It is very very concerning, isn't it?

I know. But surely Butters would feel safe in being up front with them, even if it led to a polite rejection.

Yes. But being ‘pro trans rights’ still doesn’t mean that person understands that they may be about to have sex with someone who is the opposite sex to what they have been led to believe. Sadly.

I was asked by Helleofabore a couple of weeks ago to list, in my own words, rights trans people were losing in the UK

I somewhat went beyond the original scope of that request and gave a list of ways we are currently discriminated against alongside current modes of attack to remove existing rights.

One of them was regarding 'sex by deception' legislation.

About a week later, the CPS issued a clarification that removed some of the ambiguity in the law about people who have undergone gender reassignment. I was expecting that they might be seeking to tighten the awkward case law precedents up and remove the vector by which trans people can (as is very common for marginalised groups when interacting with badly written laws) be disproportionately harmed in practice.

Instead, the CPS has seen fit to release guidance that actually makes it easier to harm trans people, and expressly provided listed examples.

It is now extremely difficult, for example, to see a scenario where (I know we don't like latin prefixes here)-passing trans women who are sexual assault survivors will be able to successfully raise a case against the men who abused them.

The law now expressly protects non-trans people who abuse trans people they don't know (or 'don't know') are transgender. It pretty much provides a roadmap for men to get away with raping us by raising counter-claims.

I'm a sexually active healthy adult and have had many partners over the years since having surgery (and some before that, though honestly that was a very long time ago and I was not a psychologically healthy person at all back due to absolutely crushing sex dysphoria so I can't imagine it was a particularly enjoyable or relaxing experience for those involved).

Since surgery, my transness just hasn't really been a relevant factor in most practical situations. I wouldn't dream of not telling someone in a sexual scenario where it would be relevant for practical physical safety reasons, and disclosure is generally a good idea in order to be able to communicate your needs and be on the same wavelength with a partner invested in you both having a good time, but (without getting too crude) I certainly haven't run into any physical difficulties there.

Given the absolute state of the world right now and the horrifying, ongoing nightmarish revelations coming out of France, the timing of the release of these amended guidelines feels extremely pointed. How can you possibly raise legitimate concerns about badly written laws that embolden rapists and perpetuate a notion that trans women - who are enormously vulnerable to abuse and incredibly unlikely to ever see justice in the courts for it - are inherently deceitful and predatory and undeserving of protection?

It may in this case just be an unfortunate accident but it is difficult not to see it in context as part of a slyly executed ongoing strategic ultimatum directed toward all trans people - especially trans women.

We must choose between safety and sexuality. We must be cloistered, guarded asexual saints untouched by worldly sin, or visible and marked as the promiscuous degenerate sex-demons that conservative media has never stopped portraying us as.

The most fiercely fought points of intense focus over the last few years are almost laser-guidedly directed toward making it practically impossible for us to assimilate into society.

If nobody is practically able to assimilate then many anti-trans attacks on our rights become much easier to justify.

Remove routes for those of us with acute, early, persistent dysphoria to actualise that assimilation; make it so that we cannot be sexually active while assimilating; remove our ability to protect ourselves from procedural breaches of privacy.

If it isn't always an active, strategic effort then it certainly looks like one, and is serving the goals of one.

This is why I give a shit. Even if it doesn't end up practically affecting me. I am not blind to what is happening here, and what has now been set in motion.

😆
Alison, your succint, plain-spoken statements stand in sharp contrast to the grandiloquent waffle elsewhere!
Not a word wasted!

I said this upthread but I don’t think Butters responded.

It really can’t be that difficult, before having sex with someone, to discover their views on puberty blockers / women’s rights to single sex spaces / JK Rowling. If they’re pro the first one & anti the other two, then what’s stopping Butters being honest with them?

Or as somebody else said, there are hordes of venues nowadays that have the trans flag all over them. Surely the obvious place to find pro-trans partners.

Datun A lesbian, for instance, has every right to expect the same anatomy in the woman she's going to have sex with ffs.

ButterflyHatched Heaven forbid that a woman with any kind of developmental disorder - that she might not even herself be aware of - ever has an intimate encounter with someone who holds your mindset.

What on earth are on you on about ButterflyHatched ?
A lesbian is a biological woman who is attracted to other biological women. It's a sexual identity, not a 'mindset'.
What have women 'with any kind of developmental disorder' got to do with it?

Don't you ever read back what you've written and realise just how illogical and unconnected a lot of it is? Like this leap from 'lesbians' to 'women with developmental disorders'... it makes no sense, and reads like an obvious swerve away from a valid point that you can't find an answer to.

If you are in denial about the reality of your sexed body you should not be trying to insert it into someone else, or insert someone else's body into it. In my opinion. You should be getting therapy.

If you are in denial about the reality of your sexed body you should not be trying to insert it into someone else, or insert someone else's body into it. In my opinion. You should be getting therapy.

This is precisely what I mean. Trans people don't lie about their sex. It is an ill-fitting and over-simplified brute-force metaphysical label you are forcing onto us. We change our bodies to align - as best as possible - with what we know ourselves to be. We are well aware of the complex natures of our anatomy and the inappropriateness of trying to jam us into oversimplified categories based upon a single factor that demonstrably does not accurately reflect who or what we are. This language - 'do not have a vagina' 'don't have breasts' - is bizarre reality denial and is actively offensive and exclusionary to other women who have undergone identical treatments to us in order to help their own bodies align with their own self-image.

A lesbian, for instance, has every right to expect the same anatomy in the woman she's going to have sex with ffs.

Heaven forbid that a woman with any kind of developmental disorder - that she might not even herself be aware of - ever has an intimate encounter with someone who holds your mindset.

The notion you are presenting here is that trans people are inherently corrupt and spiritually suspect. That everything they do is inherently predatory and harmful; that every crime must have been committed by a secret trans person; that there is no authenticity to their lives; that they are mired in soul-deep pathological perversion; that their bodies are inherently grotesque and shameful.

This is what you do, Datun. This is what you are doing here. You are once again displaying negative attitudes toward trans people or transness in general. There is a name for that.

I would be extremely careful about how I use single-sex spaces knowing that my impact on other people using them will be perceived quite differently and harm could be caused in ways that my previous body would not cause.

So this is really an argument that non-passing TW should stay out of female single-sex spaces because women will be uncomfortable sharing with perceived males but if women are none the wiser they can’t be uncomfortable because what they don’t know can’t harm them.

So is it BH’s position that non-passing TW should stay out of female spaces?

I think the intent of 'sex by deception' law is reasonable in its original context - cases where someone has actively gone out of their way to deceive a specific person into believing they are a man when they are in fact a woman (and the hypothetical vice-versa situation), and where the act itself involves extremely dubious and questionable bait-and-switch behaviour involving the substitution of physical parts of anatomy. There is clearly a completely unreasonable act of deception occurring here and the actual behaviour itself is being obfuscated.

I am pleased that the CPS bothered to consider the existence of gender reassignment at all within this context. I am pleased that it has specified that trans people are not actively intending to deceive when they engage in consensual intimate behaviour with their own bodies without obfuscation.

I think the guidelines it has issued are unfit for purpose because they, in practice, place trans people who have had gender reassignment into the same category as people who are actively attempting to trick others into consenting to sexual acts that they are not consenting to.

Our bodies are real. They are part of us. They are not bait-and-switch props. Portraying us in this way demonstrates a profoundly offensive and trans-hostile interpretation of our existence and sets an extremely concerning precedent.

'Trans people don't lie about their sex'.

Well that's great. If all Transwomen are open about being biologically male, and all Transmen are open about being biologically female to any prospective partner, then they won't commit sex by deception and that's good news for everyone.

Haha! you can go ahead and rewrite my post and then complain about it, but you'll need an industrial bottle of calamine lotion for all that straw itch

A vagina is an organ that men don't possess. It leads to the uterus, it's self cleaning and elastic, it enables menstruation, conception and birth. A man can't have one.

And it's a very important piece of kit in a sexual relationship.

Something that has now been recognised in law.

it's not difficult. Transwomen can just stay within the law. Job done.

This is precisely what I mean. Trans people don't lie about their sex. It is an ill-fitting and over-simplified brute-force metaphysical label you are forcing onto us. We change our bodies to align - as best as possible - with what we know ourselves to be. We are well aware of the complex natures of our anatomy and the inappropriateness of trying to jam us into oversimplified categories based upon a single factor that demonstrably does not accurately reflect who or what we are. This language - 'do not have a vagina' 'don't have breasts' - is bizarre reality denial and is actively offensive and exclusionary to other women who have undergone identical treatments to us in order to help their own bodies align with their own self-image.

A lesbian, for instance, has every right to expect the same anatomy in the woman she's going to have sex with ffs.

Heaven forbid that a woman with any kind of developmental disorder - that she might not even herself be aware of - ever has an intimate encounter with someone who holds your mindset.

The notion you are presenting here is that trans people are inherently corrupt and spiritually suspect. That everything they do is inherently predatory and harmful; that every crime must have been committed by a secret trans person; that there is no authenticity to their lives; that they are mired in soul-deep pathological perversion; that their bodies are inherently grotesque and shameful.

This is what you do, Datun. This is what you are doing here. You are once again displaying negative attitudes toward trans people or transness in general. There is a name for that.

I think the guidelines it has issued are unfit for purpose because they, in practice, place trans people who have had gender reassignment into the same category as people who are actively attempting to trick others into consenting to sexual acts that they are not consenting to.

Only if you lie about your sex!

Men who have had genital surgery do not have a vagina. They have an inverted penis. They don't have breasts.

A lesbian, for instance, has every right to expect the same anatomy in the woman she's going to have sex with ffs.

It's quite important!!!

Yes. This was confirmed on another thread recently.

They want a sub group of the sub group of male people excluded but them included.

However, they will attempt to splice it and parse the language to make it appear to not be this. But it is. Under all the sparple, this is what they want - a special sub group of male people to be included, others who are not so special should be excluded.