Lexi Secker, rapist, and his pronouns

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rdpdm4r4ro

'A trans woman has been jailed for six and a half years after being found guilty of rape following a night out.
Lexi Secker raped a woman in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, on 23 April 2023. The attack took place before Secker began identifying as a woman.
The attack took place in secluded woods after the pair took a walk "under the pretence of sobering up".
Secker, 35, of Lowbourne, near Melksham, has been ordered to carry out her sentence in a male prison and will remain on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
Throughout the sentencing hearing, barristers and the judge referred to the defendant as "Ms Secker" and "she".
However, in a victim personal statement, the woman raped by Secker used the name "Alex" to describe her attacker.
She said: "He took away my trust in people and myself. The assault consumed me with shame and fear."
The woman, who attended court in person to see Secker sentenced, added she had experienced "unbearable anxiety, shame and fear" since the attack.'

Fuck every single barrister and judge that colluded in this utter pish. This not a woman in any shape or form.

I can't imagine how his victim felt hearing the court pandering to his bullshit.

to her, brave woman.

This judge has previously had a petition created calling for him to be removed due to his lenient sentencing of sex offenders.

I don't think I'll be able to link to it, despite it being closed, but here is the text:

'This petition is requesting that Judge Jason Taylor QC be removed from Swindon Crown Court. The organisers of this petition feel that Taylor's lenient and sometimes complete lack of sentencing is placing many vulnerable people in and around the area of Swindon in danger.
This judge has proven time and time again that is ideology of sentencing does not reflect the true wishes of the British public. It has been reported in local media today that Taylor gave only a suspended sentence to Oscar Crowe, a man who threatened to rape newborn mothers and requested inappropriate images online from who he believed to be a twelve-year-old girl. In addition to this, one of Taylor's most famous cases lack of sentencing was when he refused to put Darren Brazier, who had downloaded 1,000,000 indecent images, in jail. He also refused to place Julian Mortimer in jail, who had been online grooming a underage boy, and had previously been convicted in the 1990s and 2000s of similar offences.
There are many more examples of such lenient sentencing which could be shared here, just type "spared jail" and "Justin Jason Taylor QC" into a search engine to see the full extent of his lenient sentencing. Many social media networks and forums display the disgust from the Swindon community as to Taylor's sentences.'

Quite. Glad that she got a conviction given so very few do. The BBC article also states that the crime will be recorded as being committed by a male, as it absolutely should be.

I join you in a massive FUCK YOU to all who collude in the utter bullshit that this MAN is in any way a woman.

He's a fucking rapist. And his behaviour as detailed is that of your bog standard boundary pushing rapist prick.

The people going along with the female pronouns are doing a performative display of patriarchal dominance because only in a patriarchy could a rapist man get everyone to pretend he was a woman. How especially insanely inappropriate during a rape trial.

And the judge? Does he look at those perps and see himself or what?

If the judge believes it’s a woman and refers to that person as a woman, how can he sentence ‘her’ for rape at all never mind to a male prison?

The people going along with the female pronouns are doing a performative display of patriarchal dominance because only in a patriarchy could a rapist man get everyone to pretend he was a woman.

Yes, exactly that. Court cannot and should not be a place to enable men to play games at the expense of women.

Throughout the sentencing hearing, barristers and the judge referred to the defendant as "Ms Secker" and "she".

How dare they override the victim

And why?

it’s unconscionable

He. Rapists are male.

@RedHelenB I was referring to the victim!!

I wouldn't call that pos man "she" in a month of Sundays.

I noticed both the BBC and the Telegraph reported the rape as occurring in 2023. However, other local papers and Reduxx (I think), suggest it was 2021. I think 2021 is correct which must have been awful for the victim to have to wait all that time and then hear her rapist referred to as ‘she’ in court.

www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/24614663.transgender-rapist-jailed-blunsdon-woods-attack/

I see, bloody pronouns.

And would the victim have been told off if referring to this man as he in court? It's happened before with the Hyde Park case.

Something else that's struck me for the first time, that really highlights the power of subtle linguistic shifts...

Compare:

1. The BBC's "Lexi Secker raped a woman in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, on 23 April 2023. The attack took place before Secker began identifying as a woman."

2. The alternative "Lexi Secker raped a woman in Blunsdon, Wiltshire, on 23 April 2023. Since the attack, Secker has begun identifying as a woman."

Would you agree with my sense that the first has undertones of - or at least the potential to be interpreted as - This was an attack more likely to be prepetrated by a man than by a transwoman? And that the second, in contrast, leaves more space for the reader to at least consider the possibility that such a transition may be in some way cynical?

Both versions are factual. Neither interpretation is definitive enough even to be considered as subtext.

Yet all the same, I do think they have a very subtly different resonance...

Is that me?

To add, I've now read the article and can see this timeline is addressed more explicitly in it (in, for example, the judges' remarks), and this creates a wider context to the language used above in a way that means my interpretation of it in this instance may not stand. I still feel the two quotations above - BBC and my hypothetical - in isolation are an interesting indication of the power of language and how subtle its effects can be, though.

That's a really good point.
Of course all this undermines the "principle" that people are who they say they are and TWAW (except for rapists). The judiciary and the police repeatedly beclown themselves with all this. It brings the law into disrepute.
No wonder people are so cynical about authority when they pander to and prioritise the demands of a rapist.

Something else about the article. The shifting use of man, woman, male, transwoman etc. are pretty hard to follow even when you're well-versed in all this. And if you are, it also highlights the incoherence of the ideology.

One assumes the "woman" victim is described as such on the basis of her sex, for obvious reasons. But when the perpetrator is, in contrast, described as "identifying as" a man, does that not highlight a problematic inconsistency? By the time we read the explicit and emphatic, "At the time of the offence, you were a man", it seems clear that, in both court and article, "man" and "woman" must logically be being used in line with the perpetrator's interpretation of these words - that of self-perception, not biology. But does the victim agree with that?

If not, his reality is being imposed on her - redefining her according to his perception - even in the aftermath of a case which is all about his removal of her agency in order to meet his "needs". And in a context in which her sex is absolutely fundamental, it's implicitly being dismissed as secondary - to his preferences. Ironic.

I don't like reflecting on it in this detail so soon after it's happened - it feels intrusive to do so - so probably won't explore this aspect further... but, even as I type that, I think, again: if I feel that way about this, I struggle to understand how there's not, at the very least, more official recognition of the complexities of respecting convicted criminals' pronouns in certain contexts.

Perhaps this might help explain why pronouns matter to the “but why can’t you just beeee kind??/how does it affect you?” brigade

I posted a Telegraph article about this in the It will never happen thread. The extra information on the judge does concern me regarding sentencing

https://archive.ph/dRDse

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/27/trans-rapist-referred-to-as-she-by-judge-sent-male-prison/

especially as the judge being quoted here

The judge said he was sentencing Secker “with regard to how difficult a prison sentence in a male institution will be for you”.

Did he reduce the sentence because Secker claimed to be trans? I'm struggling to see any other interpretation to that comment.

Good point. But he'd probably say "women can rape" which starts a whole different topic - on 2 levels.

I always feel very suspicious of judges who become notorious for consistently giving sex offenders lenient sentences. Such judges should be investigated themselves to find out why they are sympathetic to such bestial creatures.

Legally a woman cannot commit rape. If the person sentenced to a male prison for rape is a woman then the police, cps, jury and judge have all messed up severely.

Sounds like the judge’s computer needs looking at

Reduxx:

https://reduxx.info/uk-trans-identified-male-railed-against-bigoted-rosie-duffield-transphobic-jk-rowling-just-before-he-was-convicted-of-rape/

Here is his X. Full of attacks on 'gc' women.

https://x.com/itsTRANSylvania

True.
And I would say not just legally but physically we can't.
We can do all sorts of horrible (sexual) things but we can't rape.

Women can't commit rape, but I understand there have been a very few rare cases where women have been charged with it, and what's happened is that man has done the raping, and the woman is being charged under 'joint enterprise'.

Are we confident on the stats business? Can we be confident that no crimes committed by men are assigned to women? One thing saying it's happened in this case. But in every case?