Quote from: JoanneW on October 27, 2017, 10:08:13 PM
The fact that Kye insisted the lady wear a blindfold pretty much shows that he knew the lady would not be accepting of his physical self. Now why the lady would consent to wearing the blindfold is beyond me.
That's largely what is troubling me. It is true that although Kye regarded himself as a man, he obviously knew that the woman might not "see" things the same way. However, when the woman agreed to wear a blindfold for 15 sexual encounters and at least 100 hours of other activities (I accidentally left out the "at least" in my quotation), I just don't know how she could not have expected her partner to be different from his online persona. If Kye's poor judgment was a cause of the "crime", then so was hers. Kye at least had the excuse of suffering from Asperger's syndrome. The newspaper did not mention whether the woman had any excuses for her poor judgment.
Quote from: Viktor on October 25, 2017, 02:40:49 PM
I wonder if Kye had had full phalloplasty and was using that, whether the judge would still maintain that Kye was "degrading and deceiving" the woman.
I really do think that it boils down to whether a soldier, mutilated in the service of his country, would be convicted of doing the same thing. A verdict should be because of what the accused did, not because of how the court perceives the accused. As Viktor points out, a woman might also retrospectively change her mind if she discovered that her partner had SRS. Similarly if a wounded soldier had phalloplasty.
In sentencing, the judge said of the woman
"She did not consent to these invasive acts of penetration because the willing compliance with your abusive behaviour was obtained by a deceit."
To me, that implies that a trans man is lying if he tells a woman that he is a man. As for the blindfolding, that was poor judgment on the part of both Kye and the woman.
Quote from: Roll on October 27, 2017, 11:13:08 PM
The biggest issue is that he received hard time and is now labeled a rapist without qualification.
Kye, as Gayle, wasn't actually convicted of rape but of "committing sexual assault by penetration without her victim's consent". In spite of Kye's gender dysphoria, even The Times misgendered him. The reporter wrote
"Yesterday she slumped to the floor of the dock sobbing as she was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. She cried 'no' as the judge ordered her to sign the sex offender's register and remain on it for life."
The article's heading was "Jail for lesbian sex offender who posed as a man". The article mentioned Kye's gender dysphoria, so ignorance is not an excuse.
The Times article also stated
"Gayle Newland, 27, was convicted of three sexual assaults in September 2015 and jailed for eight years, but was freed on appeal last autumn."
and
"Her original conviction was quashed because the trial judge's summing up of the case was not fair and balanced."
I personally hope that she is freed again for the same reason.
The article did not mention that there was a jury at either trial. For the benefit of people outside Britain, I will mention that trials in Britain no longer automatically have juries, and that even if there is a jury, it is no longer necessary for all jurors to agree to a guilty verdict.
In my original post, I did not mention that 6 months of the 6 1/2 year sentence was for an unrelated fraud against an employer. What Kye did with the woman was not in dispute, so I did not want the unrelated fraud to muddy the debate as to whether Kye was guilty of sexual assault, especially as it relates to the broader issue of just how much trans people legally have to tell their partners.
