to be shocked at the sentencing in the Gayle Newland case?

[hackmum]

Eight years seems excessive to me. This is the woman who had sex with a female friend while pretending to be a man. Story here:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/12/gayle-newland-sentenced-eight-years-prison-duping-friend-having-sex

the actual charge quoted is sexual assault, but that's assuming the paper quoted it correctly.

From googling I see 8 years is average for rape.

I too wonder about the transgender aspect. If the convict identifies as a man, then what would the charge be, would it be the same? I find this a bit odd. If having sex with someone under false pretences is assault then many other cases would qualify as assault?

So are there implications for transgender people who have sexual contact with someone without revealing their biological sex. Surely it lays them open to accusations of rape or sexual assault if they faied to inform a partner of their biological sex?

Also baffled as to how the deception could have been maintained for that long. However, the victim has put herself in the public eye in a quite extraordinary and embarrassing fashion in agreeing to take it to court, which I really wouldn't think you would do if it was all a fabrication to cover a role play. She's not exactly come out of it unscathed or with less notoriety this way.

I heard on radio 4 she was charged with assault by penetration which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment and there was also a comment of the victim being 'vulnerable'.
It is a very odd story.

Anyone know what transactivists are making of this? As another poster said, surely under trans orthodoxy, if she feels like a man then she is a man and there's no deception? And she seems to be living "like a man" a hell of a lot more than Tara Hudson lived "like a woman"!

Newland didn't identify as as a man though . She hee befreinded her victim as a woman. She wasn't a transgendered person, and even if she had been a partner would have the right to refuse sex on those grounds. That is part of informed consent.

That's an excellent point about those undercover policemen hackmum.

Tinklylittlelaugh self identification isn't legal in the UK. The person has to apply for a document to have their gender officially changed.

I though the whole hoo ha over the moving a teams woman into a women's prison was because she self identified as a woman but wasn't legal a woman?

Maybe I misunderstood.

But surely even if she had self identified as male, the issue is that she was not the person the victim thought she was having sex with? Sorry, I'm not being clear! There was duplicity with the aim of coercing someone into sex, regardless of any gender identification angle.

Enjolrass if she had her legal document (GDR) she would automatically have been placed in a woman's prison.
However, the prison service can 'exercise discretion' if there is no GDR, which is what the petition was about. It was asking them to reconsider her case.

"Of course, what makes this a rather more nuanced case than people like SaucyJack are implying is that the victim consented."

She consented to sex with Kye, not Gayle. Big difference. It's a very similar situation to the Ched Evans case to my way of thinking.

Of course, what makes this an intriguing twist on the usual group sex/rape story is that Kye and Gayle were the same person, but the court clearly didn't find it a mitigating circumstance in any way so not should we.

Yes there was duplicity. I bet loads of people have slept with someone who wasn't who they claimed to be though. Everyone who's unknowingly shagged a married man for a start. So where do you draw the line?

Agree with you, Toby Maguire. This isn't really about transgenderism. He constructed a false identity, which included impersonating a man in order to deceive her victim.

But surely it is about the fact that the victim thought she was having sex with a man and not a woman.

It can't just be about duplicity, can it?

When I was a student, one of my friends used to pretend she was an Irish air hostess she was neither . If she identified as that and then had sex with someone, would that be assault because she was duplicitous? I wouldn't have thought so, hence why I thought in the Gayle Newland case, the main issue was around consenting to have sex with a man not a woman.

However, the prison service can 'exercise discretion' if there is no GDR, which is what the petition was about. It was asking them to reconsider her case

Which means exceptions can be made and self identification can and does happen.

It's all very complicated.

Agree with you, Toby Maguire. This isn't really about transgenderism. He constructed a false identity, which included impersonating a man in order to deceive her victim.

I totally agree and my previous comment was very much tongue in cheek given the recent threads here and the probability that some of the posters on those threads could turn it into an issue re transgenderism.

This is rape by deception, and I don't think a man would be sentenced to anything for that - there was a case where the woman expected the man to wear a condom, but he didn't, and he wasn't sentenced. Despite this being an attack on the woman's health, while ... I know of no dangers involved in using a dildo that wouldn't be there with a penis.

Laughingatweather Initially I thought your analogy spot on, but thinking about it further what this defendant did was not misrepresent who she was, so much as misrepresent what she was.

A thoroughly bizarre case. I strongly suspect there will be an appeal against the sentence. Even the local paper has run articles about how unfair the sentence seems.

Claiming to be a man when you're really a woman is a good place to start surely, Tinkly?
Perhaps that wouldn't matter to you, but it sure as hell would to me.

Glad there is a thread on this I've been trying to get my head around it since it started being reported to no avail, the length of the sentance did suprise me a bit.

Really disliking the implication this woman is lying.

I belive her. She was raped. mintyy's right - the sentences for all rape/sexual assault should be harsh. It's a horrible thing.

enjolrass that wasn't self identification. They just decided that Tara Hudson
would have been better off in a womans prison.

The transgender debate on this thread is just legal hypothesis though, isn't it? just checking I haven't missed anything If Newland was actually trans I'm guessing it would have formed a large part of the article, and indeed her defence.

APlaceOnTheCouch: you could be right. Duplicity is an odd one. There was a strange case in Israel (different legal system, obviously, but similar principle) where a Palestinian man was convicted of raping an Israeli woman because she'd consented to have sex with him believing him to be Jewish.

In the Newland case, I can see that what Newland did was morally wrong. She took advantage of an apparently vulnerable young woman, who was left very distressed. What I am struggling with is to what extent she was breaking the law. As others have pointed out, lots of people have sex under false pretences. Is there a specific bit of law that refers to women pretending to be men in order to have sex? I somehow doubt it.

Tony, I don't think that would be a viable defence in a civilised country. The woman thought she had sex with someone biologically male. I am quite sure she was not so upset purely because the person she had had sex with identified as the wrong gender.