Chamber and committees

Dr Laetitia Pichevin submission of 27 August 2021

PE1876/F: Accurately record the sex of people charged or convicted of rape or attempted rape

I am a Scottish resident and a scientist. I have great concerns about gender self-ID and the notion that anybody who declares to be a woman or a man must be treated as such legally. In particular, I am worried about the impact this has on the recording of sexual crimes, which are being recorded by gender self-ID rather than sex, even before Self-ID is the law of the land

Sex is a crucial parameter when collecting data for socio-economic and crime studies.

 In 2004 the UK granted legal recognition of gender to people diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a measure described at the time as a legal fiction intended to alleviate the dysphoric feelings of the applicant. The medical experts who were consulted predicted around 5000 applications to Gender Recognition Certificates (GRC), and as many have been granted since 2004.

Self-ID extends the GRA to anyone who declares to be of the opposite sex (a biological impossibility) without medical assessment or objective criterion, widening the demographic that will apply for a GRC by 10 to 100 folds (as has been observed in Belgium post 2016). The vast majority of these transidentified males are anatomically intact (90-95%) and have no plan to undergo surgery.

There are indications that over the last few years an increasing number of incarcerated male sex offenders are declaring a female gender identity (up to 1 in 50) as has been reported in the national press. Considering the much greater number of male prisoners compared to females, if these males were to be transferred to female prisons they would flood the female estate and greatly impact the safety and privacy of women prisoners.

By changing their legal sex and name, these sex offenders are given a clean slate, making their previous offences difficult (impossible?) to detect by potential future employers, partners etc. I believe that this clearly poses safeguarding issues. I would encourage you to investigate this matter closely.

Over the last 10 years the London police has been recording crimes not by sex but gender self-ID, whether the offender had a GRC or not, hence potentially contravening the law (self-ID is not the law). Mr Humza Yousaf confirmed last year that it is also the case in Scotland. Men commit far more violent and sexual crimes than women. Around 40% of transwomen in prison have been convicted for sexual assault which is higher than the statistics for the incarcerated male population (20%) and much, much higher than for women (figures confirmed by the ministry of justice).

There are many existing examples and, in many cases, crimes are being reported as being perpetrated by a woman. In one particular case, somebody who raped a child is described as doing so by penetration with "her" penis. I believe that it is adding insult to injury to ascribe crimes to women when they are blatantly perpetrated by a man. This is particularly relevant when it comes to sex crimes, of which 90% of the victims are women and girls and 98% of the perpetrators are males. How can we make any statistical studies and informed decisions, protect women from further victimisation and understand the misogynistic nature of such crimes when male crimes are attributed to women?

We are already seeing the consequences of this inaccurate data recording. Since 2015, sexual crimes recorded as being committed by women are increasing sharply. The Women Are Human  website keeps track of all the crimes perpetrated by trans-identified males and transvestites in different parts of the world and which are being largely reported in the media as being perpetrated by women; there are hundreds of such crimes in the last few years, most of them of a sexual nature. At least a portion of these crimes are being officially recorded as being perpetrated by women. Seeing that women commit only a small percentage of all sex crimes (but are the main victims), reporting the crimes of males as committed by women has the potential to greatly inflate the female crime statistics and render data completely meaningless, hence hampering our ability to understand the socio-economic and sociological drivers behind such crimes.

I understand that self-ID is seen as a positive measure to make the life of transgender people easier but I would urge the government to think about the consequences that such poorly thought out law entails, especially for women and children' safety. In particular, recording male crimes as female crimes is enshrining a lie into the justice system and is an insult to female victims whose rapes and assaults remain unpunished in over 90% of cases. It also prevents our understanding of the motives for various sexual crimes, their primary demographic (perpetrators vs. victims) and how to address these crimes in the justice system.