A Swedish judge cleared a man charged with rape because the victim was a transgender woman with male genitalia.
A man who attempted to rape a woman has been cleared of the charges by a Swedish court after it turned out that the woman he tried to rape was actually a man.
Prosecutors said the defendant was “brutally violent” in the "attempted rape", tearing off the victim's pants and grabbing at the victim's crotch, according to The Local's translation of Sweden's Nerikes Allehanda newspaper.
But because the victim had a penis, "The intended crime never had the possibility of being fulfilled,” Sjöstedt explained.
The unnamed defendant was found guilty of assault.
The ruling infuriated Hyper Vocal's Cooper Fleishman:
"More than anything, this case highlights the sheer absurdity of the double standard with which we treat male victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. Changing the verdict solely because of the victim’s genitalia is like switching a grand theft auto charge to petty theft because the car happened to be blue when the thief thought it was green."
Queerty's Benji Douglas added, "In essence, the judge ruled that it’s not possible to rape trans women."