It encroaches on established language, existing law, even our most private intimate relationships

This is also taken from the ONS and has no original source. Yet the CPS passes it off as a ‘government definition’. 

The CPS also references the Equal Treatment Benchbook and its treatment of gender ideology. This has come in for sustained criticism from people concerned about the spread of gender ideology across public life. One example alone will suffice. The ETBB presents a fantasy about the possibility of successful childhood transition so that a boy might live out his life as a ‘wife’ and ‘mother’ to the very point that the label ‘trans’ has become offensive: “For example, if they transitioned as a child and have spent their adult life as a wife and mother, they may feel treated as inauthentic if referred to as trans against their will during a hearing”. (Page 327) This creates a dangerous fantasy - this ‘mother’ will inhabit a male-sexed body every day of their life; they will be a life-long medical patient with as yet poorly understood health consequences as their male body wrestles with female hormones; yet the ETBB promotes an irresponsible and ideological fantasy that they have simply become a woman.

The layering and cross-referencing of these ideas across public institutions creates a false legitimacy, cements in place ideology. It is not acceptable that the Government has let this ideological material sit unchallenged, undermining science, distorting reality, ultimately harming the safeguarding of the vulnerable and threatening women’s rights. Yes, some of these organisations are arms-length, quangos. But the role of our democratically elected representatives is to work where and how they can to retain democratic legitimacy (and science, truth, reason) in all of our public institutions.

[UPDATE:  Since the publication of this article, the CPS has removed these 'UK Government’s definitions of “sex” and “gender” ' in an open admission that they 'do not reflect a current cross-government agreed position'. Well... Should the consultation now be withdrawn in the light of this update and confusion?]

Changing the meaning of the term 'gender'

As above, the CPS guidance made an extraordinary claim about the UK government’s definition of gender: 'where an individual may see themselves as a man, a woman, as having no gender, or as having a non-binary gender - where people identify as somewhere on a spectrum between man and woman'.

Not so very long ago this incoherent formulation might have been given as a definition of ‘gender identity’.

That it is now given as a definition of ‘gender’ is a deliberate attempt to change the meaning of language.  Right across society, for decades, in all sorts of circumstances, the term ‘gender’ has been used to mean ‘sex’. This attempted linguistic shift implies that in all those circumstances, across institutions, across legal and regulatory documentation, across all kinds of guidance, analysis, and policy, when we originally said ‘gender’ meaning ‘sex’, we actually said ‘gender’ meaning ‘gender identity’. This has enormous implications - it is pursuing the erasure of the importance of sex in how we organise public life. And it implies that this irrelevance of sex was always so. Thereby: public debate avoided, implications not aired, consent not given.

Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania.

The capture of the CPS by gender ideology.

Aside from all of the above, the draft guidance is full of all the neo-concepts and pseudo-science that is regularly rolled out by Stonewall and like-minded entities:

The above definition of ‘trans’ as used by the CPS appears to come from Stonewall:

The Crown Prosecution Service has left Stonewall’s Diversity Championship Scheme but Stonewall does not seem to have left the CPS.

The CPS is the organisation that produced the ‘LGBT+ Hate Crime and Bullying Guidance’ for schools that it literally withdrew rather than attempt to defend in the public realm. 

Amongst many other things, the CPS and the adult male authors of this document tried to bully schoolgirls about who they are friends with. According to the CPS, “LGBT+ hate incidents” - over which they made clear the police take a keen interest - include the following:

I know parents whose girls have been subjected to sustained pressure from boys, claiming to be trans. The boys have later apologised - it was a fad. The CPS wanted the girls to know that they were transphobic for maintaining their boundaries.

The CPS also tried to make school children worry about their own thoughts. Again, having made clear that the police take a keen interest in transphobia (it's a non-crime hate-incident):

Imagine being a school kid, a child, secretly sure that a man can’t really become a woman - and then feeling fearful because a trusted adult in a position of authority has told them their own thoughts are hateful.

As above, upon a legal challenge supported by Safe Schools Alliance, the CPS withdrew this document rather than defend it. Please read it here. 

Sexual Consent and Deception

The CPS proposed guidance around the treatment of sexual consent and deception lays out what I imagine is a well-established three step process which makes eminent sense:

But here is the extraordinary suggestion from the CPS:

I think the CPS is genuinely suggesting that someone should be allowed to argue (to pretend) that they thought their own biological sex was not of relevance to a sexual partner. 

There is this:

In a crowded gay-bar a young man becomes involved with a trans-identifying female who has been taking testosterone and passes, in a dark bar after a few drinks, as a male? A drunk straight man becomes flirtatious with a trans-identifying male who has had feminising face surgery? 

The CPS seems to be seriously suggesting that grown adults engaged in sexual activity should be able to legitimately argue that they were unaware that a potential partner might care about their sex? 

I tend to think women are not so easily fooled, hence the male-focused examples above. But lesbian women report how on dating sites or in gay venues they are pressurised by men claiming to be ‘lesbians’ into accepting those men as potential sexual partners. As if sex doesn’t matter. Indefensible boundary-violation from these individual men. The Crown Prosecution Service seems to be legitimising the stance of these men.

I hope lawyers with detailed knowledge of this area of law will have a close look at this guidance and make public comment well before the consultation closes.

***

Gender ideology has long sought to transgress and disturb human interactions in the public realm, suggesting women should accept trans-identifying men in their spaces and services and sports. 

Now it seeks to transgress and violate our most intimate private boundaries. Some people call this rape culture - the soft-focus be-kind legitimisation of transgression and violation. Please tell the Crown Prosecution Service what you think, via the consultation linked to above.

The Conservative Government has let this transgressive ideology sweep across our public institutions. If our public representatives care about the anchoring of our society in science, truth, and reason; and protecting all of us, but particularly women and children from, violation and transgression in both the public and private realms, they must make a stand. Gender ideology must be rooted out of our public institutions. Given its key role in our justice system, the Crown Prosecution Service would be a good place to start.