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when gender blinds us to sex

(217 Posts)
petunia Sun 24-Oct-21 08:48:21

Priti Patel has stated that no longer will trans women's crimes be recorded as a woman's crime. How can public services plan and organise if the data they have is not accurate? In the piece in the Mail today, this was said

“In law, only a male can commit rape, but analysis by Professor Alice Sullivan of University College London shows that between 2012 and 2018, a total of 436 people prosecuted for rape were recorded as women”. This is clearly bonkers!

By recording the crime of rape as committed by a woman, crime figures are skewed. Between 2012 and 2018 we did not suddenly have several hundred women on the streets attacking and raping other women. We had 436 men raping women. But the police and justice system chose, in an effort to be inclusive and putting ideology before biology, to record those crimes as women's crimes. We also had 436 women who probably had to use female pronouns to describe their rapists actions. Of those transwomen convicted and given a prison sentence, how many talked their way into a female prison?

Most of the time it doesn't really matter how an individual identifies. Until suddenly it does matter.


If you have some time on your hands, this series of podcasts on BBC Sounds gives some explanation as to how we got so bemused between sex and gender

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p09yk1fy

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 00:37:00

I think a more useful way would be to increase sentences for sexual assault with an implement (regardless of the gender of the assailant or victim), but keep the definition of rape as it is.

Horrible though all of this is, rape carries with it the possibility of STIs and pregnancy as well as the trauma of the assault.

Joyfulnanna Mon 25-Oct-21 01:55:56

Well done Priti

M0nica Mon 25-Oct-21 08:01:17

Once again there was a case where a woman, posing as a man, was convicted of deceiving a woman into having sex with her as she thought she was a man. She wore a dildo.

Mollygo Mon 25-Oct-21 08:15:01

Good point DD.
I hope Priti will not be subject to the sort of verbal and physical abuse currently aimed at anyone who tries to support female’s rights. Sadly I expect the shouts of TERF, transphobics or cries for her to stand down etc. will already be in the air.
What is most concerning here is that once again the appalling crime of rape of females by males, however those males present, is being sidelined by introducing mention of all sorts of other crimes, which in themselves are unacceptable, but are not the same as rape.
Don’t cry for the law about rape to be changed. Have a law which deals with those other crimes instead.

GrannyGravy13 Mon 25-Oct-21 08:22:46

Doodledog

I think a more useful way would be to increase sentences for sexual assault with an implement (regardless of the gender of the assailant or victim), but keep the definition of rape as it is.

Horrible though all of this is, rape carries with it the possibility of STIs and pregnancy as well as the trauma of the assault.

Totally agree with everything you have said, I admire your eloquence, knowledge and patience on this.

Iam64 Mon 25-Oct-21 08:35:20

Why is it that every discussion about male violence, male sexual violence, men ra;I got women (and other men) results in attempts to suggest women present similar threats. No, they do not.
Some women commit sexual offences. Only men can rape. Given the shockingly low number of prosecutions why would any woman chose to focus on the small number of female sex offenders ?

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 08:47:50

Whataboutery is usually the refuge of those with no real arguments left.

Rosie51 Mon 25-Oct-21 08:48:14

Given the shockingly low number of prosecutions why would any woman chose to focus on the small number of female sex offenders ? I wonder that too. The insistence women offend in equal ways and at equal rates as men, when it is clear this is just not true. The assertion that woman rape or force men into sex at equal rates according to the study cited by a PP. It's baffling how women are strong enough to overcome a man by force and make him have sex with them, but don't have that same physical strength to prevent a man from raping them.

Iam64 Mon 25-Oct-21 08:56:29

Exactly Rosie51.

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 09:16:37

Women are not supposed to insist on keeping a word that defines them as adult human female, but to move aside and share the word with transwomen.

Women are not supposed to mind when they are no longer being called mothers, but to move aside and let transwomen rename them.

Women are not to ask for exclusive rights to be in female spaces, which were won after years of fighting for places where males could not hurt them, such as DV refuges, or places where they are vulnerable, such as prison cells, as transwomen want to be given access.

Women are not to expect relief from things like poverty, disproportionate prison sentences for minor offences such as shoplifting and non-payment of fines, and not to expect the gender pay gap to be reduced, as they don't appear in statistics as female, but as part of a larger group that includes transwomen.

Women are to accept that statistics for sex-based crimes, such as rape and sexual assault will be skewed, as by far the majority of such offences are committed by men, some of whom will now be included in the figures as women if they claim to identify as such.

We don't have a definition of what a woman actually is, as the term 'adult human female' is considered so offensive that an MP had to stay away from her Party Conference for using it.

A professor of philosophy is hounded out of her job, which is to teach young people to critically assess ideas, for saying that safe spaces for women should not be open to male-bodied people, however they identify.

Women with English as a second language, low educational attainment or cultural norms which mean that they are less likely to be able to name female reproductive organs may miss out on cervical smears as they are to be aimed at 'people with cervices', (a phrase which they may not realise applies to them) as opposed to the more straightforward 'women', in order that transwomen don't feel excluded.

Transwomen can 'claim to have' a cervix, as they believe that they do (ditto transmen who claim to have a penis).

But none of this is misogynistic, and none of it is about erasing women. No siree.

Smileless2012 Mon 25-Oct-21 09:22:00

Exactly Doodledog.

trisher Mon 25-Oct-21 09:38:44

GrannyGravy13

Doodledog

I think a more useful way would be to increase sentences for sexual assault with an implement (regardless of the gender of the assailant or victim), but keep the definition of rape as it is.

Horrible though all of this is, rape carries with it the possibility of STIs and pregnancy as well as the trauma of the assault.

Totally agree with everything you have said, I admire your eloquence, knowledge and patience on this.

No possibility of pregnancy when a man is raped. Or when a woman is orally or anally raped. Are those then lesser offences?

Mollygo Mon 25-Oct-21 09:39:39

Precisely Doodledog.

Mollygo Mon 25-Oct-21 09:47:14

Rape by a man is the offence under discussion trisher. If those offences are committed by a male, whatever he claims to be, then they are already covered by the law. Why would you suggest or imply that these offences might be seen as lesser?

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 09:47:15

It's not a competition, but I would suggest that the fear of AIDS or other STIs, and the chance of pregnancy on top of the trauma of the rape do make male rape of a woman more serious. Anyone of either sex who is sodomised or orally raped is raped in law - it is the use of the penis that makes it rape.

It is all horrible, and comparisons like this are odious. I would prefer to see harsher sentences all round. It's not something I know a lot about, but I'm guessing that there will be leeway in sentencing for sexual assault, with something like grabbing a great at one end and sodomy or penetration with an object at the other, and the judge will have a lot of discretion when it comes to sentencing.

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 09:48:17

That should be grabbing a breast. Oh for an edit button!

VioletSky Mon 25-Oct-21 10:29:51

I'm confused because it was feminists in the US who lobbied to have the definition of rape changed to include objects used for penetration but sugfesting it here is mysogyny?

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 10:32:41

No, VS. Read the thread.

VioletSky Mon 25-Oct-21 10:50:49

I did

You know women (girls) have lost their virginity (hymen) to an object because their sexual abuser could not maintain an erection.

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 10:54:36

That is awful, but I don't know what it has to do with trans issues or misogyny, as it is being discussed on this thread, beyond the obvious fact that rape is usually born of a hatred of women.

(and yes, we all know that men are raped too, but in far smaller numbers, and no, that doesn't make it a lesser crime.)

VioletSky Mon 25-Oct-21 10:57:12

The defininition of rape should and will change here.

I'm going to find the fight and join it.

Doodledog Mon 25-Oct-21 10:59:22

Excellent.

Galaxy Mon 25-Oct-21 11:00:37

Carry on violet. I am busy fighting to get the rape conviction rate over 3 %. We all fight.our own things.

VioletSky Mon 25-Oct-21 11:01:14

eachother.org.uk/does-the-legal-definition-of-rape-need-updating/

VioletSky Mon 25-Oct-21 11:02:06

I can fight for that AS WELL Galaxy