Quote from: Dena on October 28, 2017, 12:03:30 PM
The arguments in this thread are focusing far to much on the physical and not enough on the mental. We know from this site what a SO goes through when they discover that their partner is transgender and wants to transition. The line is often posted "I didn't marry a woman". For a woman "tricked" with a strap on, it might be taken as a form of rape because the person wasn't who they claimed to be. Now the fact that they wore a blindfold suggest they were a bit gullible from the start but mental image can have just as much impact as the physical act. This is the reason I chose to disclose before entering a sexual relation - for the benefit of my partner.
The mental is a concern for sure, but does it rise to criminal behavior? Even in extremely abusive situations, mental anguish is very rarely criminal (going back to my originally leaving the door open for a civil case), or at the least not felonious.
Ultimately, we come back to the issue in applying the law equally. I can imagine no other scenario in which someone would be sentenced to jail time for lying (excepting those relating to contagious disease, which have a different justification for the criminal penalty than lying). The examples of reconstructive surgery above being the most direct comparison, but also any casual lie people tell each other all the time (which while unethical, is not criminal). Based on this precedent, say a man lied to someone about being a wealthy investment banker, when in reality they worked as a fry cook. What happens when the woman claims mental anguish justification then? Maybe the woman really, really doesn't like the thought of sleeping with someone who makes minimum wage to the point it physically repulses her (there actually are people like this, so I am not even just saying an impossible scenario). Yet regardless, I find it difficult to imagine any court would hold this man to the same standard as they did Kye. Or how about this one: a woman who is a devout ideological Nazi sleeps with someone who lies about being Jewish--the Nazi girl's case is going nowhere. And so on and so on. So you are left with one of two scenarios: 1) The law is applied unequally to Kye, and is thus inherently discriminatory against trans people. or 2) The law is applied equally to everyone, and the guy who lied about driving a Porsche is doing hard time. Neither of these scenarios is particularly appealing.
And I don't recall seeing this mentioned in the thread yet, but based on case law, this could easily mean that any transgender person in the U.K. who is living stealth without disclosing their history is at risk of doing prison time. That is terrifying.
