AIBU to think this Home Office response is a cop out? - to "Require sex of VATP & sexual offenders be recorded throughout justice system."

[FindTheTruth]

[MN please don't move this to the petitions board].

The home office has responded to "Require sex of VATP & sexual offenders be recorded throughout justice system." They pass the buck and say it is for each individual police force to DECIDE what information to record. And cop out, saying there are ethical and logistical challenges recording biological sex.

Does the home office really believe it's logistically impossible to record the biological sex of rapists when legally Rape can only involve a penis?

And saying that biological sex was not 'defined' in the petition 🙄

I hope that more people sign this petition and that the independent petitions committee tells them to re-write their response.

Extracts from the Government response:
-----------

The Government does not plan to require biological sex to be recorded across the criminal justice system

It is for each individual police force to decide what information to record.

Officials have noted that ‘biological sex’ has not been defined in the petition. If ‘biological sex’ is defined in terms of anatomy, or chromosomes, then there would be both ethical and logistical challenges

it would not be appropriate for the police or HMPPS to physically examine every suspect/prisoner in order to determine ‘biological sex’

there are no plans for the police or HMPPS to record the biological sex of prisoners.

'Biological sex' is an adequate description for this initial request for anyone who isn't being deliberately obtuse and obstructive.

OMG who wrote that and why have I not seen it before?!

Was written by Jonah Mix (who seems to be associated with Deep Green Resistance), and was published on Medium in April 2019.

Medium account since terminated, obviously.

Archive version of original:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20190421015205/medium.com/@JonahMix/an-open-letter-to-the-guy-on-twitter-who-wonders-if-biological-sex-is-real-58d2cb4403f5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">web.archive.org/web/20190421015205/medium.com/@JonahMix/an-open-letter-to-the-guy-on-twitter-who-wonders-if-biological-sex-is-real-58d2cb4403f5

(But archived medium links never work on mumsnet. You'd need to copy that link and manually edit out the "*" or "%2A" either side of "JonahMix" before following it).

As far as I can make out, the Home Office are being wilfully negligent here. Given what has happened recently, do we want to see the government led by our police forces when deciding on policies? Surely the police forces should be led by the Home Office, government should clearly lead the way on these important matters.

In a recent The Mess We're In, Lisa Townsend (Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner) was talking about pushing for firmer national guidance on some related areas.

At the minute we've got a huge spread due to massive variation in how much individual forces have let themselves be influenced by Stonewall, GIRES etc.

This looks really bad now but will look much worse when the court cases from women abused in prison start stacking up.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a case recently, and the woman lost.

So where do we go from there?

I am so, so angry.

I think this response should be flagged up to Baroness Nicholson.

Yes, perhaps she can explain to whoever is responsible for this what everyone knows what sex is over a cup of tea.

@Caaarrrl

It's ludicrous to say that only a physical examination can determine sex. Anyone in this country who is convicted of rape can only be of the male sex because of the use of his penis to penetrate a woman (usually- I know that some men are raped too).

I have no interest in disputing your basic point ... I agree with you, but ya know ...

www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/news/a38432/gayle-newland-sex-charges/

[quote joolzfromyork]@Caaarrrl

It's ludicrous to say that only a physical examination can determine sex. Anyone in this country who is convicted of rape can only be of the male sex because of the use of his penis to penetrate a woman (usually- I know that some men are raped too).

I have no interest in disputing your basic point ... I agree with you, but ya know ...

www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/news/a38432/gayle-newland-sex-charges/[/quote]
Yes indeed. They were able to correctly charge her for sexual assault. Not rape.

But I thought the prison service was able to do a thorough risk assessment before placing a male in a female prison? But it turns out they have no way of knowing when they are placing a male in a female prison? Either one is true or the other is true. Which is it?

Just found it lurking on my inbox. It's full on TWAW 🙄

What happens next? What can we do to say "No thank you. Do better."

@RainbowCrossing

But I thought the prison service was able to do a thorough risk assessment before placing a male in a female prison? But it turns out they have no way of knowing when they are placing a male in a female prison? Either one is true or the other is true. Which is it?

Oh, fantastic.

It's so bizarre, this idea that we can't accurately tell the sex of someone. It'd be like saying we're not going to ask for people's birth date or age because we can't tell the difference between a child and a pensioner

Yes exactly. If they pick up some middle aged white male criminal and he says he's a female Chinese 15 year old, are they going to record him as that, and put that on the description for who not too approach?

Surely age and ethnicity must be harder to verify than sex? But somehow we manage to make a pretty good guess at all these characteristics in most cases

Yes exactly. If they pick up some middle aged white male criminal and he says he's a female Chinese 15 year old, are they going to record him as that, and put that on the description for who not too approach?

Well, let's follow through. Can we insist that they apply consistent principles here? If they can't identify the sex of prisoners, there's no way they could identify the sex of a suspect to say who they're looking for.

They need to stop stating the sex in descriptions.

Well well well. the civil servants gave this cop out response 10 days ago and now Priti Patel (or someone in her office) has ordered the police to record sex. which is exactly what the petition asked for www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4382975-Trans-Criminals-are-not-Women-says-Priti-Patel