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Sweden: Judge Clears Rapist Because Victim Is A Trans Woman
Sweden may have some very forward looking laws and views when it comes to the violation of women’s rights, but apparently they are still fairly backwards when it comes to transsexuality as well as male rape. In Sweden, a 61-year-old man was cleared of rape charges after the court ruled that the crime did not occur due to the fact that the woman he raped is legally male. The rapist stated that he was not aware that the person he was assaulting was transsexual.
Judge Dan Sjostedt of the Orebro District Court told the media that “The intended crime never had the possibility of being fulfilled.” According to news reports, the man followed the woman, attacked her brutally including ripping the victim’s clothes off and grabbing her crotch. All of this happened in front of the woman’s ex-boyfriend’s home, but the ex stopped the attack and the authorities then arrested the man. The court, though, ruled that the rape could not have occurred because they believed that it was impossible to commit the crime.
Sjostedt stated “We believe that he wanted to rape this woman in particular. But as she turned out to be a man, the crime never was actually committed.” He called the rape ‘invalid’ and stated “There are different theories about how this should be handled, and so we’re looking forward to seeing the verdict from the Court of Appeals.”
The attacker still got charged with assault, was convicted, and faces up to four years in prison and must pay more than $2,000 in damage to his victim.
Sweden was the first nation to remove homosexuality from the mental illness rosters, and same-sex marriage is legal in that nation, along with LGB military service and adoption. Unfortunately, Sweden treats transsexuals very poorly and has a blind spot when it comes to the issue of male-male rape. The nation still forces trans people to undergo sterilization ahead of legally changing their gender.
What is more, the fact of the matter is that men do rape men. Often it is called something else, but the reality is that forcibly attacking someone sexually is still rape no matter how you want to slice it.
[That comment is not directed towards this case as this man should have been charged with rape flat out, but to the fact that the judge is really, really idiotic about this, and this is one of my pet peeves. . .men get raped too.]
3 Responses to Sweden: Judge Clears Rapist Because Victim Is A Trans Woman
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Kate
July 7, 2012 at 7:58 am
Shocking that this could happen in Sweden. Rape is primarily about power,not sex, so the sexual orientation or gender status of the victim is immaterial, surely!? One wonders how they arrived at their anti discrimination legislation, if they felt it okay to exclude one specific group of people. That the Judge didn’t point out this disparity is depressing. Leaving it to the appeal court to define without expressing a strong anti rape stance in this case, irrespective of the current law, is feeble and inexcusable.
Mats Bogren
July 7, 2012 at 3:50 am
By the way, the earlier quote pertained to “affirmative action” or quotas in Sweden, just wanted to clarify that. Either way, sexism, racism and any and all kinda of biases and discriminations are wrong. My home country has become a “reverse sexism” or “revenge sexism” safe haven.
That was my main point.
Hej då
Mats Bogren
July 7, 2012 at 3:46 am
I’m a Swede (but moved to the US more than 10 years ago) and I totally agree with you. You said Sweden is very forward thinking but I have to say that this “forward thinking” is based on women’s rights only and often discount the male perspective. Divorces, child custody cases, etc. are mostly ruled in women’s favor no matter what the circumstances are, the judges in Sweden are notoriously pro-women, some call them pro-feminazi. I dislike Julian Assange (wikileaks) and think that his fears of Sweden extraditing him to the US are ridiculous. Having said that, he will never, I repeat, never get a fair trial in my home country – the prosecutor in his case is a renowned man-hater and no matter what he says, no matter what his defense will be, one way or the other they’ll convict him. He’s a man and therefore he must be guilty.
“Det handlar inte om att få in kvinnorna. Vi ska få ut männen.
Gudrun Schyman”
“It’s not about getting in more women. It’s about getting the men out”
Schyman – the former leader of the Swedish Leftist party (formerly known as the communist party of Sweden), later the leader of “Feministiskt initiativ” (Feminist Initiative).
This kind of attitude prevails in our judicial system, feminazism at its extreme. “This woman couldn’t be raped because she used to be a man. Only women get raped and men are always guilty.”
Sad but that’s how many of us see it, my wife too, and she’s pretty leftist in her views. When it comes to men versus women issues she thinks we’ve gone overboard and have become a reverse-sexist society.