Similar distortions are visible in the Equal Treatment Bench Book, a quasi-official guide for British judges. It uses jargon that appears nowhere in law, such as ‘gender assigned at birth’. It presents preferred pronouns as compulsory and deadnaming as ‘highly disrespectful’. Never mind that a defendant’s sex and former name may be salient to a case – or that other people in a courtroom may be under oath to tell what they regard as the truth.
