Misgendering your partner is not domestic abuse, says CPS

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has rewritten advice suggesting misgendering your partner or refusing them money for gender surgery constitutes domestic abuse.

The CPS has ditched and redrafted the advice for prosecutors after criticism from women’s campaigners who claimed it was “detrimental to women’s trust and confidence” in the service.

The prosecution service had listed nine types of behaviour that could amount to abuse of trans or non-binary people by their partners or members of their family.

The guidance to advise prosecutors included “withholding money for transitioning”.

This would include refusing to pay for gender surgery, counselling or other treatment in a way that amounted to coercive control or abuse.

It also set out that refusing to use a partner’s preferred name or pronoun could amount to abuse.

However, in revised guidance overseen by Stephen Parkinson, the new director of public prosecutions, and published on Friday, the CPS has ditched the note on withholding money for transitions.

It concluded an offence of coercive and controlling behaviour requires both people to be aged over 16 and that the likelihood of it happening between adults or it being in the public interest to prosecute was low.

The CPS has also decided that refusing to use a partner’s preferred name or pronoun was not abuse.

It would now only be considered if there was evidence of an “intention of causing emotional or psychological distress” and it would be unlikely for any prosecution to be mounted where it was a parent.

‘It’s important our guidance can’t be misinterpreted’

A CPS spokesman said: “We have reviewed and updated our domestic abuse prosecution guidance after feedback from stakeholders over the summer.

“It is important our guidance cannot be misinterpreted and the revisions are intended to make as clear as possible how we will apply the law around domestic abuse so the public can be confident in our approach.”

The CPS said there was no evidence to suggest prosecutors had been misinterpreting or applying its domestic abuse prosecution guidance incorrectly.

Other behaviours that remain as examples of potential domestic abuse are body-shaming or criticising the victim for not being “a real man/woman” if they had not undergone reassignment surgery with the intention of causing emotional or psychological distress

It also includes threatening to share or sharing pre-transition images with the intention of humiliating, degrading, or dehumanising the victim or disclosing private sexual photographs or films.

It could include threatening to reveal or publish private information, such as transitioning or “coming out” as a form of control or coercion.

Gaslighting to minimise or disregard the abuse, targeting physical assaults on surgically or medically altered body parts and targeting sexual or emotional abuse towards parts of the body they are ashamed of are also behaviours that could constitute domestic abuse.

It is part of a guidance update in the wake of new domestic abuse legislation and also warns of significant under-reporting of domestic abuse against victims who are men.

“Many victims will be reluctant to report offending in the fear that it may damage their reputation or pride; others may be hesitant as they fear the consequences that may ensue with their family,” it said.

“Prosecutors will need to deal with these issues with great care to ensure that the credibility of male victims is not undermined by myths and stereotypes.”

Police recorded 1.5 million domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes in England and Wales in the year ending March 2022, up 7 per cent on the previous year. It is estimated one in six or seven men and one in four women will be a victim of domestic abuse in their lifetime.