Terrorists and paedophiles can select from 51 different gender identities in a Home Office database of Britain’s most dangerous criminals.
Police chiefs have admitted that ‘no formal risk assessment’ was carried out before recording extremists and rapists as ‘androgyne’ and ‘pangender’.
The list of obscure gender identities has been labelled ‘madness’ and the Home Secretary has been warned that failure to properly record criminals’ sex poses a risk to the public.
It comes after a landmark Supreme Court ruling this week that ‘woman’ and ‘man’ refer to biological sex and that ‘the concept of sex is binary’, with any other interpretation ‘incoherent and impracticable’.
Police forces will be expected to record criminals’ sex rather than their preferred gender following the ruling, meaning that rapists will no longer be able to identify as women.
Criminals are recorded as 51 different genders in the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) database, a Home Office system used to track the most dangerous offenders upon their release from prison (file image)
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick (above) branded the list of genders ‘madness’ and said that police chiefs seem ‘more interested in woke nonsense than arresting criminals’
Last night Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said it showed police chiefs are ‘more interested in woke nonsense than arresting criminals’.
He told the Mail: ‘Gender identity is irrelevant to a system that’s sole focus should be on protecting the public and tracking dangerous people. This is a recipe for operational failure.’
The Home Office has admitted that the database – which was updated in 2022 to add the ‘gender identity’ category – is ‘outdated’ and said a new system for tracking offenders is being developed.
The list of gender identities includes ‘pangender’, ‘transgender person’ and terms like ‘androgyne’ and ‘neutrois’.
The database has a number of gender categories with the same meaning – such as ‘cis male’ and ‘cis man’ – as offenders have provided different answers or officials have recorded them in inconsistent ways.
They are recorded in the Violent and Sex Offender Register (ViSOR) database, a Home Office system used to track the most dangerous offenders upon their release from prison.
The Ministry of Justice says that ViSOR is used by police, the prison service and probation officers to ‘manage the risks posed by individuals convicted of serious violent, sexual and terrorism offences living in the community in order to protect the public’.
It comes after a landmark Supreme Court ruling this week that ‘woman’ and ‘man’ refer to biological women and men and that ‘the concept of sex is binary’, with any other interpretation ‘incoherent and impracticable’
Isla Bryson (pictured) was jailed for eight years in 2023 for raping two women
Maya Forstater, chief executive of human rights charity Sex Matters, said allowing criminals to be recorded as bizarre genders wasted police time and taxpayers’ money and ‘makes a mockery of the justice system’.
‘There is no justification for this foolishness,’ she said. ‘Police forces should focus on solving crime and keeping the public safe.’
She added: ‘Badly designed data categories produce nonsense data. Public authorities have lost sight of data protection laws – and of reality. The Home Secretary should bring down the curtain on this farce.’
Some police forces still record rapists as being women despite a backlash over the case of Isla Bryson, who began identifying as trans while awaiting trial for two rapes. Bryson was convicted in 2023 and jailed for eight years. She was first sent to an all-female prison before being transferred to a men’s prison after the case sparked public outrage.
The list of ViSOR gender identities, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, includes 20 different ‘trans’ identities.
Criminals can also identify as ‘gender fluid’ – which means they can change their gender depending on how they are feeling – genderqueer, or simply as ‘other’.
Androgyne refers to a person who is ‘simultaneously a man and a woman or in between the two’, while neutrois is associated with ‘gender neutrality or the nullification of gender’.
Three terrorists were recorded on the ViSOR database in 2023 as ‘gender fluid or non-binary’ rather than male or female, separate Ministry of Justice data shows.
The database is used by police in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as by the Probation Service and HM Prison Service.
Last month a Government-commissioned review by Professor Alice Sullivan (pictured), from University College London, found that from 2015, public bodies began collecting information on gender identity rather than biological sex, meaning ‘robust and accurate data’ was lost
It also contains biographical information and passport details, as well as intelligence such as known accomplices, and is an operational system used to monitor offenders upon release. It can be updated by police, prison officials or probation officers depending on the person and offence.
Annual figures published by the MoJ shows that the ViSOR database conflates sex and gender identity in official data.
A government-commissioned review found last month that official statistics have become ‘corrupted’ by extreme gender ideology, with the conflation of sex and gender now ‘widespread’.
The Sullivan Review revealed that many police forces record crimes committed by biological men as though they were committed by women ‘at the request of the perpetrator’.
It added that it is ‘quite possible’ that somebody who has changed gender could be released before their offending history is known and urged the Home Secretary to make recording data on the sex of offenders mandatory.
ViSOR data shows that in 2022/23 three ‘Category 4’ offenders – those monitored under the Counter-Terrorism Act – were recorded as ‘other’ which ‘covers any other gender such as gender fluid or non-binary gender’.
In 2023/2024 there were no Category 4 offenders with an ‘other’ gender but there were seven in ‘Category 3’ – meaning they are ‘considered to pose a risk of serious harm to the public’ – and three convicted of sex offences.
Maya Forstater, chief executive of Sex Matters, said said allowing criminals to be recorded as bizarre genders wasted police time and taxpayers’ money and ‘makes a mockery of the justice system’
FOI data from the National Police Chiefs’ Council shows that the ViSOR database was updated in February 2022 to include the optional ‘gender identity’ category, which includes the 51 options. That came in addition to allowing offenders to be recorded as neither male nor female.
The NPCC response adds: ‘It is understood that no formal risk assessments/impact assessments were undertaken in relation to the instruction of these values.’
Dr Kath Murray, from policy analysts Murray Blackburn Mackenzie which obtained the data, said the list of gender identities shows that the Home Secretary needs to make recording data on sex mandatory.
‘At the risk of stating the obvious, it is hard to understand what possible operational value there is in knowing that a registered sex offender or a person convicted of terrorism may think of themselves as neutrois, pangender, or other such obscure terms more commonly found on Reddit discussion boards or Tumblr,’ she said.
Details of the 51 gender identities come after a list of 24 genders recognised by the Scottish government was last year mocked by Harry Potter author JK Rowling and Tesla founder turned President Donald Trump aid Elon Musk.
A Home Office spokesman said: ‘The ViSOR system was developed twenty-five years ago, in an effort to maximise the information collected and shared about known offenders and thereby help the police keep track of them.
‘Many aspects of the system are now outdated, and the Home Office is currently developing a brand new system, which will reflect modern requirements and reporting standards, and give the police the tools they need to manage the risk from the most dangerous offenders.’
