Transgender woman accused of deceiving man for sex

Ciara Watkin is on trial at Teesside Crown Court

A transgender woman "deceived" a man into thinking she was a biological female so he would have sexual relations with her, a court has heard.

Ciara Watkin, 21, told the man she was on her period to stop him discovering she was biologically male, prosecutors told Teesside Crown Court heard.

Lawyers for Ms Watkin, from Thornaby near Middlesbrough, said she accepted lying to the man but it was "blindingly obvious" to him that she was biologically male and he had only complained as a response to being mocked by his friends.

Ms Watkin, who identifies as female and was referred to by female pronouns in court, denies three counts of sexual assault.

The defendant was born male but had identified as female and used the name Ciara since the age of 13, although she had not undergone any medical treatment or surgery, the court heard.

The pair, who are the same age, met on Snapchat, on which the accused used a female cartoon character as a profile picture, before meeting in person and going on to have sexual contact, the court heard.

'I don't swing that way'

While Ms Watkin performed sex acts upon the man, she moved his hand when he went to grab her breast and thigh and told him she was on a period to keep him from touching below her waist, prosecutor Paul Reid said.

In his closing speech to jurors, Mr Reid said the case revolved around "informed consent" with the man later telling police he would not have had a relationship with Ms Watkin if he had known she was biologically male.

When asked by officers what he would have done if he had known the defendant was a biological male, the man replied "I wouldn't have met her because I don't swing that way", the court head.

The man said he felt "sick" and "dirty", adding he felt it had "[taken] away his manhood" and made him "look stupid" in front of his friends, Mr Reid said.

He said Ms Watkin admitted to police she had not initially revealed to the man she was born male, telling them she did not do so because it was "hard for [her] to find relationships".

Mr Reid said messages exchanged between the pair after she did reveal her true biology to him showed the man was genuinely shocked by the news, telling jurors: "You can be perfectly sure he would not have consented if he had known the true state of affairs."

'Not a predatory figure'

In her closing speech on behalf of Ms Watkin, Victoria Lamballe said it was a "trial of our times" with gender identity being an issue people had "strong and very differing feelings" about.

She said the man had spent a lot of time with Ms Watkin, including several intimate liaisons, and it "beggars belief" he did not know she was biologically male.

"I mean absolutely no disrespect to [Ms Watkin] when I say this, or others who suffer as she does from feeling they are trapped in the wrong body, but we say she is visibly and audibly very obviously male," Ms Lamballe told jurors.

She said the man's comment about "looking stupid" in front of his friends was his motive for making a complaint, adding: "It is clear the reaction of his mates is the most concerning thing to him."

Ms Lamballe said the defendant "believes herself to be female" and "that is the way she wants to be seen by others".

"She isn't some predatory figure trying to hoodwink unsuspecting men into bed before laughing at them afterwards," Ms Lamballe said, adding: "This is her life, she lives each and every day as a woman."

Ms Lamballe said Ms Watkin still had male body parts, shaved her face every day and was "plainly still identifiable as the sex she was born into regardless of the way she wanted to portray herself".

That Ms Watkin was biologically male was "abundantly" and "blindingly obvious" to the man, Ms Lamballe told the court.

Recorder Peter Makepeace KC told jurors Ms Watkin "accepts she deliberately sought to deceive" the man "into believing she was a birth female" but her case was he was not actually deceived and consented to sexual activity "knowing full well" she was biologically male.

The trial continues.