Transgender Rapist: Sex Offender Registry Violates Transgender Rights

“It only serves to harm her psychologically by requiring her to continue to publicly identify by a male name,” attorney Cary Bloodworth said on behalf of her client, a convicted sex offender who is male and identifies as a woman.

“And to endanger her physically by increasing the risk that she will continue to be the victim of transphobic attacks by members of the public who are able to identify her as transgender by her legal male name.”

Ms Bloodworth’s client was 15-years-old, 6’5 and weighed 345 lbs in 2016 when he sat on and forcefully performed an oral sex act on a boy 10 months his junior who was 5’10, 110 lbs, blind in one eye and functioning at a six-grade level due to autism.

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Under Wisconsin’s law, the Department of Corrections (DOC) must maintain a sex offender’s registry that includes the offender’s name and any aliases used by the offender. The statute forbids the offender to “change his or her name” or “identify himself or herself by a name unless the name is one by which the person is identified with the” DOC.

The basis of the 19-year-old’s motion is that the Wisconsin’s statute is an unconstitutional violation of his rights. C.G. argued that self-expression outweighs any government interest in limiting his use of another legal name, and the statute violates his First Amendment rights by restricting his self-expression as female and preventing transgender individuals from communicating their preferred gender identity “while not doing the same for registrants who are cisgender.” He additionally claimed that the statute violates his Eighth Amendment rights against cruel and unusual punishment by “outing” him as transgender.