Thread by @SethAbramson

Sorry, J.K., but if a self-described trans (alleged) rapist is indeed a trans person, there’s no harm or foul here—the policy just ensures proper recordkeeping. And if the suspect *falsely* claims to be trans, that lie will be used against them at their rape trial. No issue here.

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1470092815506063365

(PS) I can’t even tell what J.K. is getting at. Is she saying a trans person ceases to be so if they commit a rape? Is she saying governments should be empowered to strip people of their identity when/as they even *accuse* someone of a crime? Why do I think even she doesn’t know?

(PS2) Criminal law is one of those areas one must be careful tweeting about if one doesn’t know what the hell one is talking about. J.K. seems to believe that the police are *accepting* that a trans person who has not transitioned lacks a penis if that person identifies as trans.

(PS3) In short, J.K. should delete this tweet not just because it’s transphobic—though it is—but because it actually makes no goddamned sense at all. When you drill down on it, it’s wholly unclear what she’s even objecting to or what supposed problem she thinks she’s identifying.

(PS4) In short, the only way a booking record becomes relevant to anything at a criminal trial is if it *hurts* the defendant by revealing a lie. Anyone worked up about how someone is booked—when it has *nothing to do with the evidence at their trial*—is hiding some other animus.

(PS5) I’m reading the replies to my thread and realizing how many folks don’t realize that by law a woman can rape a man and that rape doesn’t require a penis. These facts are separate from what my thread’s about, but my God some folks really need to Google “digital penetration.”

(PS6) At any rape trial, the means and location of penetration will be described *in detail* at trial—and *no* alleged victim will ever be required to alter their testimony in *any way* because of a mere *booking document*. This is all just nonsense in J.K.’s fevered imagination.

(PS7) The term “rape” is both a lay term for any felonious sexual assault (“rape”) and a statute whose elements differ by jurisdiction (“Rape”). I hope people realize that Rape is a felonious sexual assault and that there are other types of felonious sexual assaults besides Rape.

(PS8) In casting about for silly ways to defend J.K. Rowling’s conspicuous transphobia, it appears some folks wish to claim that she’s merely obsessed with how *booking documents* could interfere with prosecutions under a specific statute—even though there’s no evidence they can.

(PS9) But the reason J.K. did not say “if a suspect is booked as a trans woman, the statutory element of penile penetration at a Rape trial cannot be proven” is because not only is that untrue but perhaps the stupidest f****** thing I’ve ever heard as a criminal defense attorney.

(PS10) In most jurisdictions a woman can be charged with Rape because penetration need not be with a penis. If where you live a woman would be charged with Aggravated Felonious Sexual Assault (not Rape) if she penetrates a man against his will, OK. It has nothing to do with this.

(PS11) So no, it’s not a defense of J.K. to claim the statutory definition of Rape versus Aggravated Felonious Sexual Assault is what she was focused on—as even if we had any evidence that she *was*, there’s no evidence booking documents influence the evidence presented at trial.

(PS12) And when I say that a woman can rape a man digitally or via a foreign object, the fact that in a given jurisdiction that particular felonious sexual assault might be charged as Aggravated Felonious Sexual Assault rather than Rape has nothing to do with this conversation.

(CONCLUSION) I’m so glad I did this thread—it gives me the smallest glimpse of what transphobia in the UK looks like. Those of you hanging your hats on statutory language—when booking documents have nothing to do with how any statutory offense is proven—are telling on yourselves.

(CONCLUSION2) J.K. Rowling made a very clear submission about criminal law that was factually false: she said that government prosecutors wouldn’t be able to argue that a suspect had a penis if they booked that suspect as a trans woman. If you defended her lie, go live with that.

(CONCLUSION3) If you think the issue here is crime data, you’re taking a situation that arises a handful of times per year and imagining it happens thousands of times more due to transphobic fear. If you think the issue here is womanhood or manhood, you misunderstand transphobia.

(CONCLUSION4) The abject incoherence in J.K. Rowling’s tweet was generated by transphobia: she couldn’t articulate the harm she perceived as a matter of law or culture, so she lazily relied on Orwellian doublespeak. Not one irate UK commenter in this thread could identify a harm.

(CONCLUSION5) My job as a Twitter user is to create the sort of digital space that I want to live in—*and* the sort of home I would want to invite others into. If you are blocked from this feed after your comments on this thread, it’s on the basis of transphobic statements. /end

(NOTE) Rape victims should be able to speak the truth as they see it, and juries assess truth as they see it. If evidence emerges that rare booking events are evolving into set judicial orders on how rape victims can testify, I’ll revisit this. As of now there’s no such evidence.

(NOTE2) The way you know the transphobes’ alleged fears about crime data are pretextual is that in Scotland any Rape recorded as being committed by a woman by definition (re: “penis” in statute) would have to have been committed by a trans woman—meaning no confusion in the data.

(NOTE3) Just so, we know transphobes’ alleged fears of the muzzling of Scottish Rape victims testifying at trial are pretextual because Rowling’s tweet was about government officials’ booking records—*not* trial testimony—and there’s no data suggesting such muzzling is happening.

(NOTE4) I now have UK transphobes on my feed telling me that the government should record “sex” in all criminal arrests *using a means besides self-reporting*, which I guess means *government-mandated strip searches* for trespassers and pot-smokers. This is getting truly bizarre.

(NOTE5) The reason that some lawyers argue on Twitter with folks who’ve never represented a defendant, never tried a criminal case, never memorized a statute, never investigated a crime and never been present at a booking is because they feel they have an ethical duty to educate.