Girl who posed as boy on Facebook arrested for stalking

[Shana A]

Girl who posed as boy on Facebook arrested for stalking
Josh White

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/josh-white/a-14-year-old-prince-william-c.html

A 14-year-old Prince William County girl who posed as a boy on Facebook to strike up a relationship with another teenaged girl was arrested last week and charged with stalking, after her true identity was discovered and she refused to stop contacting the alleged victim.

Prince William County police said the girl created a fake profile on Facebook in early 2009 and, using the ruse of being a local boy, befriended a girl with whom she had mutual friends. The two carried on an online relationship and then began meeting in secret at a playground near the victim's home in the Woodbridge area last summer.

[kyril]

Seriously?

In addition, the girl was charged with sexual assault by ruse because she posed as a boy and struck up a relationship that had the beginnings of intimate contact.

I get the stalking charge if the rest of the story is true. But this? And of course the refusal of the reporter to respect the boy's gender identity. But the sexual assault thing really tops it off. So are all stealth trans people open to charges of sexual assault now?

[cynthialee]

Kyril...
When I read that ->-bleeped-<- in the article my blood went cold!
Not a good precident, this child weather male or female should fight that charge tooth and nail. That will amount to a sex offender rap sheet.

[Miniar]

There's no guarantee that this is a case where an ftm is involved.
The person in question went on to create Multiple false accounts to continue to harass the girl.

[kyril]

FTMs can be stalkers too.

I just have a lot of trouble believing that a GG would pretend to be male in-person in a romantic relationship, or if she did, that she'd be able to pull it off. Or that she'd get away with it for any length of time, given that the accused stalker and the alleged victim had friends in common and met in person.

It sounds to me like this person absolutely had to have been socially transitioned in most contexts already in order to pass in the situation described. If he's not an FTM, I'll eat my shorts.

[spacial]

I don't have any detailed knowdge of the laws in this particuar area of the US, but it seems to boil down to a few points.

1. Is it possible to stakl someone on an internet community?

If the boy had continually tried to approach the girl physcally, perhaps near her home or where she frequents, then that would have clearly been stalking. The girl has little choice over where she lives and it is not acceptable for someone to be forced to move their home or neighbourhood because of a stalker.

But the boy is only accused of approaching her on and online community.

I regularly play an online game where certain people repeatedly attack me and even kill me. By this measure, those boys could be charged with assault, or murder!

2. The alleged different accounts which the boy is said to have opened. Is there ay evidece for these?

I sincerely hope a civil liberities group becomes involved here. If this boy is prosecuted, or worse, not prosecuted and the charge lies of file for several years, it will set a terrible precident.

[Miniar]

Either way, ftm or not ftm, I think assuming the person is transgendered is about as bad as assuming the opposite.
I mean, we don't like other people forcing us into gender-boxes we don't fit in... do we?
So without knowing the person, who are we to tell where he or she or they belong?

[cynthialee]

Miniar I think the most important factor here whather he is trans or she is a nutter is that they want to prosecute this person for sexual assult by ruse.
That is not good idea for us. If they want to do that they can arrest how many of us?
How many trans people who are deep stealth will this, aproach to prosecution, destroy after they have been outed?
If you can get a teen for it for a kiss then getting a transperson who is in a sexual relationship with someone will be a slam dunk. Hell all it would take is for someone who already knew a person was trans, to make the acusation they didn't know.

Nothing good came come from a guilty conviction in this case.

[spacial]

Miniar.

With respect, to repeat what cynthialee has said, I think you're missing the pont. We refer to the person being prosecuted as a boy, because that is, as far as we know, how he sees himself.

There are so many issues and implications here. None positive.

[Miniar]

I do see the problem with what they are prosecuting them for and I do see the point of it. I didn't really think of anything to add to that point which wasn't obvious.

And no, "as far as we know" we know nothing about how the person in question self-identifies. We don't know whether they're trans or not. We have no reason to make either assumption without their say.
Seeing people used "him" about a trans-woman, or "her" about a trans-man bothers me plenty. To call a person trans without knowledge of whether or not they are trans bothers me for the same reason. It's the whole, "I decide what you are" gesture involved, so I felt the need to comment on it.