http://lexiecannes.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/rapist-freed-in-sweden-becau...
Impressive misogyny in what is supposedly a feminist utopia. Between this and the still in the process of being abandoned requirement of sterilization of trans people, I think we can stop defending this deeply misogynistically cissexist country as a feminist paragon.
It seems that the Swedish have not learned that rape laws are a bad way to deal with sexual assault. I believe one of the best arguments for getting rid of the term rape in Canada's laws was that it takes the debate over what body part did what to what body part and goes straight to we don't care because the only things that are relevant is was it an assault and was it sexual in nature. Sweden has three categories of rape and this case highlights how the focus has to start from the assault on the person not on whether a penis was inserted into anything. The focus on rape means a focus on body parts. Hopefully this nasty misogynist will at least be sentenced for some other crime like violent assault. As an aside this rapist obviously did not publish any "secret" documents.
The comments allude to the rapist in question getting four months and a fine of about three thousand dollars.
And yes, forced envelopment is rape, just as forced penetration is rape, plain and simple.
I expect this thread will see no equanimity of outrage, discussion, or organization, commensurate with the level of anger over whether concern about grunting in tennis is sexist (it is).
This isn't something so complex it should scare anyone off, this is a rapist getting a lighter sentence because of the genitalia of the woman he raped. I imagine mine will be close to the last comment this thread receives however, because trans women are, for so many of the people on this board, honourary women at best.
I think a number of women who have gone through the court system in Canada have reported that the move away from "what did what" as a court process left them feeling slighted as far as the impersonal and neutered language. Shades of the Michigan legislature etc.
One of the benefits pushing the learned judiciary towards the change was to not refresh those moments in the minds of those continuing to suffer; but at the same time it took away those women's right to tell the story as it had happened(when they chose to). The new law can get everything done by reading "we went upstairs, I didn't consent and he had oral sex" and then fast forward to "he then left and I called police"
The law can't serve everyone as they would see it done, so yes, there's outrage enough even for the laws we currently have! winners and losers in Canada and the world over
Our changed laws ported to Sweden would have done alot of good for this lady perhaps Sweden can get its worldwide ranking adjusted down until it closes this loophole
I expect this thread will see no equanimity of outrage, discussion, or organization, commensurate with the level of anger over whether concern about grunting in tennis is sexist (it is).This isn't something so complex it should scare anyone off, this is a rapist getting a lighter sentence because of the genitalia of the woman he raped. I imagine mine will be close to the last comment this thread receives however, because trans women are, for so many of the people on this board, honourary women at best.
i see your point about the tennis thread and lack of outrage. i feel the same way about the lack of concern here 'bout the 11 year old girl in Manitoba who was beaten across the buttocks with a riding crop bad enough she had to go to the hospital. her foster father got a 2 year suspended sentence.
for 1 thing i consider his actions as a sexual assault. no man has a right to pull down any 11 year old girls pants for any reason let alone to beat them. girls are developed by that age in lots of cases. a close family friend's stepfather would do that to her and then go jack off.
to me it seems like judges everywhere protect the right of men to get their "jollies" however they want.
i don't think knocking feminists is the right way to approach what's happening to women the world over.
Well, I am a feminist for one. And yes, when there's insufficient reaction to the continued rape of women. When there's silence over at least two professional activists calling themselves feminists who advocate for criminalization of transition medicine, which would kill countless thousands of women. When bodily autonomy is only a legitimate concern for the cis, never mind a population larger than PEI being back in the 1970s with regard to the rights to their own bodies, I think it's very much the right way to approach what's happening to women who aren't middle-class, white, and cis. As a movement, we are terrible at moving our concern beyond the most normative or approaching intersection in any manner but rhetorical.
An injury to one...
i'm not a feminist. my mom is. she calls herself an eco-feminist whatever that means. she says 'cause she focuses most of her time on environmental crap. other things termed "feminist" are lower on the scale of things. i guess given the vastness of gains that need to be made it's better to focus? i don't know. i do know or am learning is not to paint with a large brush over a large group of people.
i'm way more focused on the sexual assault aspects of harm to girls and women these than i was...ever. now i've a daughter whose older it seems more in my face. not that it wasn't before. my aunties suffered terribly. i guess it's just different. closer some how.
often what we think is silence is power moving unseen with the end result being more than we dreamed possible. i think in our heart of hearts we all dare to dream of a time of equality and acceptance if not unconditional love. imv that's what we've all got in common.
it's hard to hold it though in the daily grind.
i'm way more focused on the sexual assault aspects of harm to girls and women these than i was...ever.
Cis girls and cis women. Let's be honest. You derailed a thread about a woman who was raped to speculate about whether a cis girl who was beaten was also sexually assaulted. (Having been sexually abused and nonsexually abused, I can tell you the only difference in terms of what it does to the victim, what it did to make me a nervous, flinching, mess is the liklihood of severe punishment for the abuser.)
sorry i didn't mean to derail. i thought i would at least converse with you as i feel very empathetic. or i did.
i don't know a woman who hasn't been either sexually assaulted or physically.
carry on....
Yeah, me either, though we're able to talk about our abuse more is part of it. I'm in a bit of a defensive mode for the reasons I mentioned above. A trans woman gets raped, her rapist gets four months, and there's not nearly as much response as there is to, 'is combatting grunting in Tennis sexist?'(yes)
One runs low on spoons.
RTTG, just a very quick comment: I really enjoy reading your posts. Thanks for taking the time to write them.
Thank you Sven. I oftentimes don't know why I write them here. They seem to get angrier and angrier since the quiet remonstrances have been met with no learning, no attention. There seems no interest in doing anything about the 170,000 + (and that's just counting by prevalence of social transition, not what one would expect would be the prevalence of transness based on cisGLB prevalence, since best hypothesis indicates hormonal balance being key to both) people living under what was Pierre Trudeau's abortion law. The one Henry Morgentaler went to prison to fight. Or reparative therapy being forced on trans children. There's no mention of the excellent work being done in Toronto by Morgan Paige. And while the vocal bigots have fallen silent for the most part, everyone else has too.
Allies: You have the google. I should definitely not be the only feminist on this board speaking out about one of the most heavily policed populations of women in the Western World. You owe it to yourself to toddle off and do some reading. Just a little.
Taking the advice to google it myself, I find the following:
The Swedish press is reporting that the sentence was four years, not four months - as an assault conviction.
The 61-year-old is now convicted for assault. The punishment is four years prison and 15,000 kronor ($2,161) in damages to the woman.'
It appears that the penalty was either near the harsh end of one for "gross assault" (possible sentence from 1-6 years) or at the low end of the scale for "exceptionally gross assault" (possible sentence from 4-10 years). [based on this information from the government of Sweden]
From the English language commentary, it appears the case is almost certainly headed to a Court of Appeal - and that the sentencing court will be directing the case there in order to have a higher court address the problem with the way the existing law is written that precluded the lower court judge from convicting on a charge of rape (i.e., vaginal penetration).
According to what I could find in regards to penalites for the crimes of "rape" (2-6 years -- with the provision that if the crime is considered "less aggravated" the maximum penalty would be 4 years) and "gross rape" (4-10 years). PDF of Chapter 6 of the Swedish penal code) Descriptions of the distinctions between the two crimes are contained in Section 1 of that Chapter.
hey tks for that...hellva lot more than the Manitoba man got for beating a 11 year old girl's butt with a riding crop. It should be appealed too.
This is awful. It's a national disgrace for Sweden.
The Translations differ. This one says months: http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=sv&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2F...
How nice that the first time someone other than me bothers to do research on trans rights, it's to minimize their importance. Next you'll be claiming the prevalence of transition is 1 in 30,000 and that the ratio of transitioned trans womyn to men is 3:1, and not the closer to 1.4-1:1 estimated currently.
Also, I guess that makes the fact that what happened to her was erased and classified as not rape all the better then. And bagkitty, I'm loathe to trust the accuracy of an article entitled:
Man beats rape rap after victim found to be a man.
And based on the description of the crime, I think we're looking at Gross Rape on top of the assault.
After following the woman for some time, the would-be rapist was "brutally violent" in the "attempted rape", tearing off the victim's pants and grabbing at the victim's crotch, according to the paper.
Definitely not a 'less-aggravated' crime.
Queerty also reports four months http://www.queerty.com/swedish-judge-apparently-believes-trans-women-can...
Also: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/man-dodges-rape-charge-because-trans-...
Fidel, one imagines they needed a transmisogynistic national disgrace to make up for their promise earlier this year to stop requiring trans people to be sterilized so they can get basic human rights, a practice they still haven't phased out. This is the legacy of the second-wave and X-tian right, (and the former is far more powerful in Swedish government, let's not pretend otherwise) to continue to suppress transition.
I maintain that the largest driver in the difference between cisGLB prevalence and trans prevalence, since best science indicates both are driven by gestational hormone levels, just at month 3 for neurological sex and months 4 and 5 for sexual orientation, is the amount of suppression and the ease of suppression of the latter. Avowed prevalence of cisGLB orientations has more than tripled in the last 30 years in the US. When we legalize transsexuality (and don't kid yourself, we are a scheduled people) I wouldn't be surprised if a greater increase occurred, for that matter it's in the process of occurring.
I didn't know that, either. I thought human rights for Swedes were more advanced than this.
No, their stance on human rights is just more grounded in 2nd-wave thought than this. Better from a utilitarian point of view in some areas, worse in many more. This is what happens when we ignore intersectionalism. Some impressive instances of misogyny happen when you start disqualifying women as women.
The treatment of women in Sweden was portraid well in the Girl With the Dragon Tatoo series
I've been meaning to get back to this thread for ages. Thanks for posting about this, RTTG. The points made above about language around "rape" as opposed to "sexual assault" are interesting because I can see how they can exclude situations that don't fall within cis "norms".
But the truth is, this case is about ignorance about trans experiences and realities, something pretty much all countries and societies everywhere share. I've learned so much even in the past year or two about trans issues that didn't even hit my radar before, and I know I sure have a long way to go before I have a good understanding. I read your posts with interest and gratefulness for the learning opportunity, RTTG, even when I don't necessarily have much to say in response.
The points made above about language around "rape" as opposed to "sexual assault" are interesting because I can see how they can exclude situations that don't fall within cis "norms".
Agreed. Quite simply, forced sexual contact should be treated similarly. Enough of this pretending forced penetration is worse than forced envelopment or forced frotterization bullshit, enough of pretending that being made to write a cheque to your rapist for two decades is magically less traumatic than being made to have your rapist's child as has happened to numerous children who have been raped. It is time to oppose rape culture always and with uniform ferocity, not just when it hurts straight cisfeminine people. I've survived sexual assault, and I've survived the lack of solidarity in the aftermath of a sexual assault that happens when the world pretends that you cannot be a survivor. The second one is harder to come to terms with, because it's a crime that was committed by hundreds, not just one.
I would encourage you to continue starting threads and inviting others to them
I thought about the above sentence for awhile after I keyed it out; beforehand I had felt it was a mercy to give you attainable goals rather than to be shutout time and time again.
But it made alot more sense when I thought about it and translated your "why" into something my own feelings could understand and see as you have demonstrated that it is not such a big imposition to ask of others to allow for the possibility of the impossible when they routinely ask the very same thing of society themselves.
It'd be great for babble to be ahead of the curve before it's in the law books in a year or two
I don't know if my blood pressure can take it, but I should like to continue not shutting up. Sometimes I refuse to shut up on other websites too. And on those websites someone will also wax nostalgic about the good old days when womyn like me shut up and left feminism to the relatively privileged. Well, I'm living in the equivalent of 1968 when it comes to respect for my body, when there is no right to on-demand control over what my body does, there are no shelters on which I can rely, and where there is a pay gap that can't be explained away by differences in tenure or the desire for a more human workweek, nothing dependent on a perceived cultural attitude that others should do more work... just simple, unidirectional, misogyny, without recourse or solidarity or a network of millions of people who have some measure of power and won't see others undergo the same indignities.
I'm glad I'm good at working a calculator at three in the morning or I would be positively fucked right now. And the more I try to attract something resembling an equivalent level of outrage to these abuses, the more I'm dismissed as histrionic.
It would appear that people are sucked in by the PR on Sweden as much as they are by Canada's PR. While I can't say I'd know what a feminist utopia would look like (or any utopia, for that matter), I know Sweden sure as hell isn't it.
Regardless, you're quite right RTTG. It is truly outrageous that trans people should be so dismissed, abandoned, ridiculed and abused by a dominant gender identity.
start by flagging those "waxing nostalgic hate fests" as offensive
RTTG, I'm wondering what you think of this resource that attempts to explain transgender issues. Apart from a few people I've known who are transgendered, I have very little knowledge and even less understanding of what it is like to operate in this society as a trans person.
Thanks for the suggestion Rebecca. Please take my response in the spirit of discussion, but I don't think this is a good resource. Also the ed suffix on transgender is superfluous, treats transness as an action as opposed to an inherent quality. And transgender covers a really wide range of presentations, identifications, and behaviors, since transgender refers to repeated presentation or identification at variance with one's CASAB (Coercively Assigned Sex At Birth), while transsexual refers to use of or the desire to make use of medical technology to cause one's body to be recognized as a sex/gender (the two are interchangable) at variance with one's CASAB.
Hunter S. Thompson is transgender, Dame Edna is transgender, Dakey Dunn is transgender, but none of them are transsexual. This doesn't mean they're not subject to cissexism, but it does mean they face a different set of autonomy issues than other subsets of the community.
Anyway, that aside, I think that resource starts off with a fundamental error. Cissexism, when it gives conditional approval to trans identities, often operates in the form of separating genital morphology from neurological sex and calling the former biological sex and the latter gender identity.
The brain is a sexually dimorphic organ, not all of it, just some really important parts of it. To argue that a woman is biologically male is to essentialize genital and gonadal morphology as holding primacy over neurology, when it's clear that the rest of the body is far more beholden to the brain than the other way 'round.
So yeah, we can talk about genital morphology, we can talk about Coercively Assigned Sex At Birth, we can talk about neurological sex, and we can talk about identified sex and how well it serves as a metric of neurological sex (pretty well, but a small percentage, though a growing percentage of cis people) of people later realize they didn't settle on something they were comfortable with. But to talk about biological sex is meaningless.
Because by the only legitimate metric for a sapient species, especially one as social as we are, trans people are biologically their identified sex.
Also, I'm pretty sure someone with a female midbrain and testes has an intersex condition, non? Might not be one where the sex is assigned by scalpel (assuming no circumcision or clitoroplasty), just society, but still clearly an intersex condition.
PS: The Real Life Test is increasingly becoming a relic, used more arbitrarily than standardly.
PPS: The general message of: Trans people go through a lot of shit, don't be an asshole and pile on, is a good one. But still I expect a little more sophistication than that from allies and activists.
I'm the last person to expect you to educate me, but I truly appreciate what you've brought to the table. I've found it difficult to find material on transgender/transexual experience that isn't clinical and divorced from the reality that people face.
Thank you.
Hey, it's a big part of why I'm here Rebecca. Actually, I came across a pretty good video on this stuff that, while a little degendering (it's tailored to her audience) makes a lot of smart points that are based on the science, and the science is important to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgMiyp5bwrg&feature=player_embedded
Fascinating video! I've always been a big proponent of the innate nature of gender identity and sexual orientation, and had a lot of arguments on the subject (even some on this site). I remember first hearing the David Reimer story in a university psychology class twenty years ago where it was presented as a success, and was highly sceptical (and rather horrified). Years later I came across the book that was written on the subject that exposed the real horror this poor guy went through. As always, our addiction to binary thinking leads inevitably to misery and oppression.
I always love when people point to the drastically increased prevalence of transition as proof that transness is a fad... really it's just proof that now you don't have to pretend to be straight, be under five-foot-seven, have a skeleton that will be read as cisfeminine, be deep-stealth, and be operative, to transition.
And still being trans is about as legal today as a Canadian abortion in 1968, except being trans comes with pervasive discrimination that's rather difficult to avoid on top of it. Can you imagine when being trans is as tolerated as being cisGL? I wouldn't be surprised if transition prevalence approached the avowed cisGLB prevalence of 8%.
I always love when people point to the drastically increased prevalence of transition as proof that transness is a fad... really it's just proof that now you don't have to pretend to be straight, be under five-foot-seven, have a skeleton that will be read as cisfeminine, be deep-stealth, and be operative, to transition
That must be incredibly frustrating. People who are afraid to acknowledge that human diversity is natural and necessary would likely want to rationalize their fear by labelling gender transition as a "fad". To be so dismissed has to be hurtful.
Oh, there is so much that's incredibly frustrating right now, just ask [man's name redacted], but at least there is hope, and consequences.
