Dear Nick Brown,
You might have seen the story of Gayle Newland in the media. She was convicted last week of rape by deception for pretending to be a man and using a prosthetic penis while in bed with her blindfolded female partner.
Gayle's case, and many others like it, has disturbing implications for the LGBT community. The idea that it can be a crime not to disclose your "true" gender to your sexual partner - that idea doesn't exist in statute. It's a creation of the CPS and of judges and it's an unfair creation. If deceiving someone as to your gender is illegal, why is it legal to deceive them as to your race, age, relationship status, income or favourite football team? If a BNP supporter alleged rape by deception after he unwittingly slept with a Muslim, the legal system would give him extremely short shrift! It speaks volumes about our own homophobia when "making someone do something gay" is an especially heinous crime. It's reminiscent of the infamous "gay panic defence".
Even more worrying is the notion that everyone has a true gender to start with. If Gayle had been a pre-op transsexual identifying and living as a man, would she still have been guilty? At what point in her transition is she sufficiently male that she doesn't have to disclose her birth gender? If a man mistakenly believed her to be female based on her appearance, and she failed to correct his unstated assumption, would that invalidate his consent?
This effect of this law, or rather this legal precedent, by its nature will be felt disproportionately by those whose gender identity is somewhat fluid. I would find it very hard to convince someone I was female, therefore it would be very hard for me to break the law in the same way as Gayle. When a crime exists that can only be committed by members of a certain group, and that group is already marginalised in our culture, we don't call that justice; we call it apartheid.
If Labour are committed to LGBT rights, I ask them to pledge to rewrite this law to make it clear what is rape by deception and what isn't. It may be that Gayle remains guilty under a clearer law. But there are thousands more LGBT, genderfluid and non-binary folk who deserve the right to form intimate relationships without looking over their shoulders for the gender police.
Yours, etc.
