Spouses who refuse to fund their partner’s gender change surgery may be committing domestic abuse, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says in new guidance. The Telegraph has more.
The CPS has listed nine types of behaviour which could amount to abuse of trans or non-binary people by their partners or members of their family.
These include “withholding money for transitioning”, which would include either spouse refusing to pay for gender surgery, counselling or other treatment in a way that amounted to coercive control or abuse.
Other behaviours could be “criticising the victim for not being ‘a real man/woman’ if they have not undergone reassignment surgery”, or “threatening or sharing pre-transition images”, or refusing to use his or her preferred name or pronoun.
The guidance has, however, been criticised by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN), which campaigns for the sex-based rights of women.
The group has written to Max Hill, the head of the CPS, citing the guidance as “detrimental to women’s trust and confidence” in the service.
Heather Binning, founder of WRN, said: “How on earth can reluctance to pay for elective, unnecessary surgery from family finances be cited as an example of domestic abuse by anyone, let alone the CPS?
“The same document states that correctly referring to a family member’s sex is also abuse. This completely ignores the difficulties and emotions many people experience when a family member identifies as something they clearly are not.”
