A couple of weeks ago when the trial was just getting under way there was a thread on MN which in the end was deleted because it was mostly trying to establish whether Blake was female, as all the reporting indicated, or male, as seemed overwhelmingly likely looking at crime statistics and what is known about the attributes of sadistic killers of both other animals and humans.
Looking at the specifics of this case, a healthy young man, over 6' in height, had been overpowered by an assailant, strangled and thrown into the river. Even allowing for the element of surprise, given it was during the night, and the victim being very drunk, it looked unlikely that a woman could have done this just considering the physical strength required, before we even start on the psychology. The assailant and victim were completely unknown to each other, and that's also a very uncommon feature of murders committed by women.
All of which leads me to wonder now what the jury were making of all of this. Without a transcript of the trial, we will never know, but were they briefed in any way about Blake's background at the start? Or were they just sitting there wondering whether Blake was male or female and whether it would be interpreted as bigotry to ask? Eventually the defence barrister called Blake as a witness and from the accounts I saw it seems Blake talked about childhood difficulties, including coming out as transgender to his parents aged 12, and their adverse reaction to that. That was when the media finally reported that Blake was trans, but as we've seen from the reactions on this thread the wording has left many intelligent people thoroughly confused about Blake's sex. Was it clearer to the jury?
I do think this is relevant, as in a case with less clearcut evidence the jury would be trying to take into account factors like the physical strength of the defendant and the victim. Knowing that a defendant constantly referred to as a woman was actually a male who went through normal male puberty is important.