Call defendants by gender they want, judges told

[Igneococcus]

Supposedly a "dynamic document" that is “admired and envied by judiciaries across the globe”:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ba69c2c0-668b-11ec-98df-0bb0132add1b?shareToken=f53fe2c462d32ddc9bd3e5d7faab1d4d

Stonewall are a charity group promoting the rights of all queer people including trans individuals.

I have no idea what queer people are. I'm a female homosexual - forced to refer to myself in this way as lesbian is now a mixed sex term and frowned upon unless being used by someone male in which case it's celebrated - who campaigned with Stonewall in the section 28 days. Stonewall has very sadly become actively homophobic, emphatically does not represent LGB people and in fact is using the claim to represent and speak for them to further a TQ+ agenda which is homophobic and wishes to make homosexuality a thing of the past.

Thank goodness for the LGB Alliance. Which does represent LGB people and the right to be homosexual.

However Stonewall, rather like the women's refuges and the Brighton Rape Crisis situation among many others, demonstrates that once an agency or service takes on TQ+ politics, it is no longer able to represent or provide for any other service users or briefs. The TQ+ brief is incompatible with being held alongside anything else; it takes over and pushes out all other interests, and often refuses to tolerate those interests. For example the women pushed out of women's rape crisis services are not allowed to have a service to meet their needs at all, alongside the TQ+ provision. Any attempt to set up a group to meet those unmet needs is stamped on. And the effort to smear and shut down the LGBA is never ending, because its mere existence is intolerable.

Tolerance for other briefs, other people's needs and access, is a very serious problem with the TQ+ politics and it is increasingly obvious that it needs to be held separately from other services or briefs so that other people's needs are able to be met as well. So I am very pleased you're happy with and served by Stonewall, but it is no longer an LGB organisation and it is one of the most serious problems that homosexual people now face in their lives, because it claims to be in order to further the conflicting political agenda of others.

Our justice system has (at least in my lifetime) also been mutable and adjustable to the challenges that the world presents

If you look at the experience of the justice system from the female perspective you will find that it has been anything but mutable and adjustable to the most serious sex based needs of females in my lifetime and going back through the line of mother, grandmother, great grandmothers lifetimes etc etc etc. I'm glad you find it is serving male and TQ+ needs though.

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Equal-Treatment-Bench-Book.pdf

...
For example, a victim of domestic abuse or sexual violence at the hands of a trans person may understandably describe the alleged perpetrator and use pronouns consistent with their gender assigned at birth because that is in accordance with the victim’s experience and perception of the events. Artificial steps such as requiring a victim to modify his/her language to disguise this risks interfering with his/her ability to give evidence of a traumatic event.

...

This was published Dec 21. So is this pre-empting the challenges from Allison and Maya?
www.judiciary.uk/publications/december-interim-revision-of-the-equal-treatment-bench-book-issued/

I think it's an improvement, it's not perfect but a step in the right direction, surely.
It should prevent what happened to Maria.

I'm not sure a hardline position of no pronouns in court without a GRC would be in the interest of justice.

I'm not sure a hardline position of no pronouns in court without a GRC would be in the interest of justice.

English courts are all about law, not justice. So that's OK then.

Are you saying that a transman who has been the victim of a crime should be referred to by the court as 'she' ? The law allows people to change their driving licences etc.

Pegasus made a comment a while ago that is illuminating.

I used to be at the bar and have spoken to a number of judges about this. It’s a unmitigated fucking disaster.

The vast majority of judges are decent men. They want to do the right thing. They also tend to be MC, white and privileged with little to no understanding of the trans issues raging.

It’s a dangerous combination. They don’t want to say or do the wrong thing so they lap up the training given by lobby groups, legitimately believing in what they’re told and genuinely fearing that they might actually be bigots when they find this stuff doesn’t make sense.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4379444-Maya-back-in-court-tomorrow-20th-Oct?msgid=111785546#111785546 (Might need to scroll up.)

@Imnobody4

Are you saying that a transman who has been the victim of a crime should be referred to by the court as 'she' ? The law allows people to change their driving licences etc.

I don't think anyone is saying anything about how the victims of crime should be addressed.

You're using your victim TM to enforce though that a female who has been the victim of a crime must be forced to lie and use pronouns implying that her attacker was a woman if the attacker wishes to so compel her. Which is a further assault on her, permits a male person to use the court process to further dominate and disempower their victim, and may significantly affect a very stressed female's ability to give evidence. Do you agree with compelling her too? Or are you only concerned about emotional impact on people when they are TQ? Where is the flexibility and equality for all going to come in?

Gender identity is not the most important consideration and other people's speech should not be compelled in a way that to them may feel like being forced to lie and to participate within a belief that they i in fact do not hold.

I'll add to that: if you have chosen to make someone else a victim of your crime, then to demand that the victim puts your choices, needs and feelings above their own and organises their giving evidence in the situation you forced them into around your preferences is extremely unreasonable to put it mildly.

I'm not going by the Times article but by the actual revision published. It recognises that victims of sex crimes shouldn't be required to use preferred pronouns. Is this not progress? This is a win, not the war but an important battle. I've posted actual extracts above.
Here's a feminist activist lawyer if you don't believe me.

twitter.com/OHaraMaureen9/status/1475547609955717133?t=nZTG0n1dKEmE-zYUKGs_lg&s=19

What this article says about guidance for judges in the Equal Treatment Bench Book (ETBB) about use of preferred pronouns in court is misleading. The new interim ETBB published this month sets out circumstances in which witnesses will not be compelled

They don’t want to say or do the wrong thing so they lap up the training given by lobby groups, legitimately believing in what they’re told

And these judges are unable to think for themselves? To analyse what they are being told? They require witnesses to give accurate evidence about what they saw, heard, smelled, experienced, yet these guidelines require witnesses to either refrain from telling the whole, accurate truth, or to actively lie. How are the most experienced legal minds in the country unable to see the contradiction?

And as for victims of sexual assault being permitted to speak the truth, why should women have to earn the right to speak truth in this way? Why should women have to be abused in order to be permitted to speak the truth?

Yeah jelly. Women being allowed to tell the truth

Allowed

What crap all of this is. Unbelievable that anyone believes it

Do you have stats on how many transmen in England and Wales, or whole UK,

Have been prosecuted for sex offences?

I can think of one (a fair few years back) who was reported in the media as she. Even though transwomen were she as well.

I just do wonder...

If... And this example feels incredibly unlikely. But anyway.

If a gay man pulled a transman in a club, went home with them he's too pickled to be able to give consent. Got to bed, he realises transman is on top and his penis inside vagina.

Then yes. Of course it would be more than ok for him to say her/ she etc.

Because vagina is fundamental to the assault.

And when penis havers commit the vast vast majority of sex offences, against women girls, and men boys.

What is throwing in what about the TM meant to achieve?

Apart from make clear that sexual violence committed by penis havers is apparently beside the point.

Children are interviewed for evidence about sex offences.

Underage girls, one in a grooming case was cross examined for iirc 3 days. As there were something like 10 defendants and each had a barrister, so each allowed to cross examine. She was young. 14 15 or something.

Of course it matters.

@ProfessorSlocombe

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Equal-Treatment-Bench-Book.pdf

...
For example, a victim of domestic abuse or sexual violence at the hands of a trans person may understandably describe the alleged perpetrator and use pronouns consistent with their gender assigned at birth because that is in accordance with the victim’s experience and perception of the events. Artificial steps such as requiring a victim to modify his/her language to disguise this risks interfering with his/her ability to give evidence of a traumatic event.

...

Updated Dec 21? This year ie just before Xmas?

And I think I posted earlier that when the updates to this section were originally noticed months (over s year?) ago.

I read it and it was nothing like what I read the other day ..

And looks like been updated again?!

Let me look old versions. I have a feeling the first updates published ages ago, I couldn't see them.

And fyi

Remember the mind boggling judgement about males in women's prisons.

That the judge accepted obvious risk to women. But not got much data and so n might only be a few women attacked. And balanced with the fact males who are trans are most oppressed people full stop. Felt like a few women being harmed was worth it for greater good

At time thread on here pointed out, what he said sounded straight out of the (older) update to the bench book.

So vv possibly. And remembering not all cases make national media. The updates as were have already influenced judges...

This is from Feb 21.
Link opens PDF.
this is the one I remember I think.

Anyone interested in having a look, let me know your thoughts.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Equal-Treatment-Bench-Book-February-2021-1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjkzaKLx4f1AhWFilwKHRM3DjIQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2kG2WDUK9IyvshQc1nD192" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Equal-Treatment-Bench-Book-February-2021-1.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjkzaKLx4f1AhWFilwKHRM3DjIQFnoECAQQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2kG2WDUK9IyvshQc1nD192