CPS change the proposed 'sex by deception re gender' legal guidance

[Chariothorses]

Following public objections, the CPS announced yesterday they have changed the proposed legal guidance on Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO), specifically the guidance on “Deception as to gender”, which can be found in Chapter 6 Consent, to 'Deception as to sex'. Rape and Sexual Offences - Chapter 6: Consent | The Crown Prosecution Service.

The outcome of the consultation is available here: Consultation on the Deception as to Gender section in the Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) legal guidance | The Crown Prosecution Service.

summary of consultation responses here: Consultation on CPS guidance on Deception as to Gender - Summary of Responses | The Crown Prosecution Service.

There are ongoing problems re ideological capture by trans lobbyists and misogyny within the CPS so thanks to all who contributed to the changes they have reluctantly introduced.

I think the Pelicot case is an incredible rare example of justice actually sometimes being done even when imperfect laws and prejudiced social climates are stacked against someone from a group who rarely get to see it and I wholeheartedly support the verdict.

The law supports those who are deceived by a sex partner who does not disclose their sex while they have made every attempt to present themselves as the opposite sex to their body's sex category.

'Passing' trans people still have a responsibility to disclose the sex of their body.

This is an inescapable reality.

Are you going to continue these periodic attacks against my character for the rest of the thread or can we just assume that you've done so and save you a lot of time and frustration?

That's not an attack that's an accurate representation of your posts

To people with negative views or attitudes toward trans people or transness in general, yes.

That is the law. It actively reinforces the notion that transness is a deceitful, shameful thing and perpetuates the idea that doing normal consensual things that normal people do is to be punished.

It places the burden of responsibility on members of a marginalised minority group - who are already hugely vulnerable to abuse, systematically discriminated against and extremely rarely see any kind of meaningful justice in the courts - to expose themselves to harm if they are otherwise trying to actually integrate into society.

A live embodyment of the meme: something terrible happens to a woman; transwomen most affected.

That's not an attack. It's a commentary on a poster who shares endless screeds of personal information and burble in an attempt to manipulate women on here that they and their mates should be exempt from the law (sex by deception) and from respecting women's rights to privacy and safety from men. You often weaponise dreadful crimes against women, post conspiracy theories about children and suicide, spend hours smearing women discussing safeguarding children as anti trans, bigots etc.

Then you're surprised that you get feedback?

You may notice that when I invite posters to elaborate on their positions or deliberate on thought experiments to reveal complexities and nuances within ideological positions that patently do not accurately represent the real world, I am chastised or told I'm a ridiculous fantasist. Especially if I press the point or attempt to extract a meaningful answer anyway.

Yet there are so many examples of posters repeatedly demanding answers to their own thought experiments, page after page, with increasing passive-aggressiveness. Likewise with driving endlessly down into the depths of my own psychology in order to seek out weaponisable quotes. When it is clear that route has been exhausted, we switch mode to narcissism/derailment dismissals.

I rarely bother complaining about it or asking for a measure of respect because it's a futile exercise.

If a poster is polite and respectful then I make sure to try and thank them where possible. I won't be cowed or shamed into silence, however.

So you don't think trans people should be exempt from this law? In which case, what is the problem? Please explain, because I am baffled.

That is the law. It actively reinforces the notion that transness is a deceitful, shameful thing and perpetuates the idea that doing normal consensual things that normal people do is to be punished.

It's not 'consensual' if you deceive someone about your sex.

“Yet there are so many examples of posters repeatedly demanding answers to their own thought experiments, page after page”

What ‘thought experiments’ do you refer to?

Or is it answers to questions that are very real that you are now dismissively miscategorising?

Just like this false representation:

“deliberate on thought experiments to reveal complexities and nuances within ideological positions that patently do not accurately represent the real world”

Understanding the material realities of being female and that sex is not changeable is not an ‘ideological’ position. It is the very opposite.

Just because you say that it is an ideological position doesn’t make it so. You can say whatever the fuck you want about sex categories, it doesn’t change material reality.

“It places the burden of responsibility on members of a marginalised minority group - who are already hugely vulnerable to abuse, systematically discriminated against and extremely rarely see any kind of meaningful justice in the courts - to expose themselves to harm if they are otherwise trying to actually integrate into society.”

Let’s reword this to be accurate and to exclude the emotion manipulation that is most obvious.

“It places the burden of responsibility on members of a marginalised minority group - who are already hugely vulnerable to abuse, systematically discriminated against and extremely rarely see any kind of meaningful justice in the courts on people to expose themselves to harm if they are otherwise trying to actually integrate into society to be honest and upfront with potential sex partners about their sex.

Integrating into society doesn’t equal ‘deceiving sex partners about the sex you are’.

@ButterflyHatched These are personal questions, but I'm asking them to try to understand your character. Have you ever had an assessment for autism and were any of these issues raised before sign-off on gender transition?

Women on here can't silence posters - only Mumsanet can do that if they decide a poster isn't posting in good faith.

You get repeated feedback / pushback / criticism because (judging by the contents of your posts) they display little respect for women and girls, they're not empathic or showing an interest in parenting or in the vulnerability of children to gaslighting that their growing bodies are wrong.

You're fully entitled to those views. We see the whole gamut of anti-women posters, incels, misogynists etc arriving on here pronouncing about how awful women are. As long as they post in line with the guidelines their posts usually stand. But Mumsnet do allow posters to respond - not remain in passive "listening only" mode that most transactivists seem to expect from women.

Consent is consent and no has a full stop after it.

The law says that a trans woman who earnestly believes she is engaging in consensual sex with someone who perceives her to be a woman in line with her daily presentation is a sex criminal if that person secretly harbours transphobic views and hasn't made them clear to her.

It says that men who rape trans women are able to claim that they didn't know their victim was trans in order to confound prosecution.

It says that trans people do not deserve privacy; that they must go through life periodically exposing themselves to abuse even if they have been lucky enough to escape it.

It says that the feelings of transphobes are more important than the trans people they hate - people who have absolutely no interest in having sex with transphobes themselves and would not consent to doing so if they knew. Who goes to court in this scenario? Who does the CPS list numerous examples of?

It's a terrible law that has always been a terrible law and has been changed to be more harmful in a way that sets an extremely worrying precedent.

@ButterflyHatched the law says that if someone consents to have sex with a woman, but the individual is in fact biologically male and has deceived them - whether by commission or omission - the consent is invalidated.

That's it, and that's all.

You can spend hundreds of words bewailing and explaining away and reframing, but it doesn't change the law. Or the truth.

If you have sex with someone either while lying and claiming to be a woman, or neglecting to mention you were born male, you're committing a sexual offence. Doesn't matter whether you think it's fair or not.

"It says that the feelings of transphobes are more important than the trans people they hate - people who have absolutely no interest in having sex with transphobes themselves and would not consent to doing so if they knew. Who goes to court in this scenario? Who does the CPS list numerous examples of?"

So, this is saying that being 'trans' is a philosophical belief? Because the two scenarios are to be treated as equal.

"Who goes to court in this scenario?"

If a person with a transgender identity has been upfront and honest throughout the entirety of their sexual relationship, how would the other sex partner be able to take them to court for 'sex by deception' and win?

This has been the glaring inconsistency people have repeatedly tried to highlight. What other group of people are protected from having their materially real situations exposed in court? Any other group? Whether it is a philosophical belief or a material reality?

And yes, some people might have to defend their innocence just like in other cases, and it is abhorrent behaviour that a person has misused the law as a source of abuse.

That does not mean the law should be repealed. It does not mean that the law is not protecting people vulnerable to being sexually assaulted.

All people are protected from rape by the law; men, women and trans.

You seem to be thinking that consent is a one-way street.

A trans woman has to consent to the sex and the man has to consent also. And the consent has to be informed. The man has consented under false pretences if he didn't know that his partner was actually biologically male.

There is nothing in law that says it is acceptable to rape a trans woman if the rapist didn't know they were trans. What a bizarre thing to suggest.

Well, I thanked you for answering, but I'm horrified nonetheless. You do think trans people should be exempt from the law.

A person who is upset because they found out they had sex with a man, thinking he was a woman, is not being transphobic (remember, non-trans people commit this crime too, and presumably you think they should be punished).

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that the law is badly written and provides numerous avenues for exploitation by terrible people, especially against trans people. It expressly singles out trans people in a way that reads as grotesquely pointed.

I think that a law which actively encourages discrimination against trans people and criminalises sexually active cis-passing trans women unless they take steps to no longer be cis-passing is an incredibly bad law.

It takes us right back to the dark days of Portsmouth/Guardsman defence, just with a new transphobic lick of paint.

You're not saying that?

ButterflyHatched · Today 14:19
It says that men who rape trans women are able to claim that they didn't know their victim was trans in order to confound prosecution.

You're saying that you don't think you or any other trans person should be truthful to sexual partners.

You talk about privacy, but we're talking about sexual intercourse here! Where you are quite literally exposing yourself to your partner.

“criminalises sexually active cis-passing trans women unless they take steps to no longer be cis-passing is an incredibly bad law”

Any person who does not disclose their sex and have represented themselves as the opposite sex to their sex category, regardless of any identification that states otherwise is not seeking full consent from their sex partner. Their sex partner is unable to consent if they have been deceived.

Not one person on this thread has said that a person should have to change their presentation. They just have to have a conversation that declares that they are either male or female.

It must be a very disconnected mind that believes a happy intimate relationship can be built based on not disclosing this fact about themselves. And the weak arsed attempts of dismissal of it as ‘hidden transphobia’ is just another cognitive distortion. It is the absolutist approach of if you need to know this you are hateful.