Transphobic court tosses out rape charge because defendant’s intent ‘was to rape a woman’
Categories: gender & feminism, law & order, social justice, violence
Friday Hoyden: Gillian Triggs 
DUFC #69 
Advising women to prevent their own rapes is not brave or edgy or helpful 
An article about domestic violence in the Guardian in which it’s OK to read the comments - Reblog
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Hoyden About Town 
Iām going to try to track down something about this in Swedish.
That would be most useful, Aqua. Iām presuming that the attacker will still be held to account for assault/GBH etc ā but if the main thing that stopped the attacker from completing the rape was only the absence of a vagina, then how on earth is it not still attempted rape?
According to the comments on the blogpost there could be some issue with the law and its interpretation. But certainly someone who knows a) Swedish and b) Swedish law would be better placed to say what is going on. I hope it has been mis-reported š¦
Yes still held to account for the assault ā 4 years in prison and payment in damages to the woman. The judge recommended the sentence be appealed and was ālooking forward to the verdictā from the Court of Appeals.
http://m.thelocal.se/41822/20120704/
Sounds like we might have a cloaked-activist judge on our hands, deliberately being very rigid in applying the law as written in order to provoke a clarifying ruling from an upper court.
I found the original Swedish news story (Iām not sure itās been covered in the rest of the Swedish media).
http://na.se/nyheter/orebro/1.1721191-valdtaktsforsok-blev-misshandel
Most of the article is pretty much as has been translated. The victim is described using female pronouns throughout the story and as āpurely physically a manā one time. Otherwise, she is referred to as a woman.
Right near the end, we get to this:
In my (worth every cent you paid for it, and possibly less) translation, thatās something like:
The legal expression for this is that the offense is āunfitā. The term is unusual and according to Sjƶstedt it is not exactly defined what is meant by this.
āThere are different theories on how to handle this so therefore we look forward to the upper courtās judgementā says Sjƶstedt.
IMHO, definitely a judge wanting the law clarified! On the other hand, Iām a bit disturbed by the extent to which this legally is about the offenderās intended action (which I infer as vaginal rape ā the story does not address the possibility of rape via other orifices), rather than the actual actions and their effect on the victim. Iām not sure if I was knocked over and my clothes torn off Iād care all that much whether the person completed all zir intended activities.
As mentioned elsewhere, the offender was convicted of assault, but itās only four months imprisonment, not four years (come on, rest of Internet, āmĆ„nadersā is not that hard to translate!)