The Courier: "Does it matter if someone was born male or female? When it comes to crime reporting, yes"

[miri1985]

Excellent article in the courier by Lucy Hunter Blackburn

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion/2136685/lucy-hunter-blackburn-gender-in-crime-reporting/

"A recent FoI response from Police Scotland suggests the same problem will apply here.

It said that if a rape or attempted rape is perpetrated by a “male who self-identifies as a woman … the male who self-identifies as a woman would be expected to be recorded as a female on relevant police systems.”

Recording gender identity instead of sex is mainly justified by privacy concerns. There are times when it really is no-one’s else’s business what sex another person is.

But there are also times when accurately reporting sex matters, because the experiences and behaviours of men and women are so different."

Some discussion in earlier thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4220415-Steal-My-Sunshine

Thanks @EmbarrassingAdmissions had done a search before posting but hadn't seen that since the title is so vague.
@MNHQ can you delete my thread so I'm not doubling up?

Great article, such an important issue to have discussed in the news. Very interesting that they've pointed out that so many people ended up doing their own research to prove what they knew to be true - the criminal was male.

A good article to share elsewhere too.

This is an excellent piece.

I believe this is the first time this issue has been covered in the mainstream press.

I remember when the story was first published and the perpetrator was identified as "she." Comments on the facebook page had people frothing with the opportunity to leave misogynistic comments, which of course had no basis in truth whatsoever. This masking of the truth just emboldens those wanting to set back women's rights under the guise of "women are just as bad as men, their offending rates prove it!"

Kara Dansky discusses pronouns and the influence on the way judges respond - plus the impact on sentencing and crime statistics: in some very sensitive areas:

It matters because this kind of imprecise, inaccurate reporting is at odds with our basic perceptions about men and women. Enough of it will lead us to believe that the perceptions themselves are wrong. The danger of this is two-fold. Violent men will be treated more leniently than they have any right to expect and women will be saddled with the reputation for violence that men have earned for themselves. Not only will men have succeeded in appropriating the mantle of womanhood but they will remake it in their own distorted image.

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/dear-andrew-sullivan-there-is-no

NB: I was transcribing from a video - I haven't seen the full piece - around 21min mark.

I may be wrong about the author - of the above piece - sorry, I'm relying on subtitles.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn, who wrote the Courier piece is definitely an ally going by her twitter feed.

twitter.com/LucyHunterB?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

This is the feminist policy collective she is a member of.

murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/