Ask Harvey Weinstein’s defense attorney, Jacob Kaplan, and he’ll tell you, unequivocally, it does, just has he portrayed to jurors in the current criminal Weinstein case.
This bizarre manipulation of common sense and personal autonomy is at the heart of the problem with our current system of injustice. In NY State, only a “NO” categorizes rape as a crime. If the victim is too stunned or overwhelmed to say no, and they had or have a relationship with the offender, getting a juror to contemplate that you are complying out of fear or or other malicious influences is difficult to introduce as evidence.
Even when Miriam Haley, in the prior Weinstein conviction, stated clearly that she did not consent to Weinstein inserting his penis in her vagina, Judge Farber ruled that the jury must disregard her stated testimony.
How do we change this?
By defining CONSENT clearly as a exactly what it is….
A freely given, knowledgeable and informed agreement, by a person with the capacity to reason.
Become a Consent Crusader! Help CAN turn our human right of Consent into a Civil Right backed by law, TODAY!
“In what life does a consensual relationship entitle someone to rape you?”
One answer is, when a man is dressed passing as a female in the eyes of a “drunken fratboy” or other male “rube” who would not otherwise or is not ready to consent to sexual contact with another male and the “trans-woman” knows this would probably not be welcome.