Drunk woman fined for grabbing trans man’s genitals to check his gender
![A police photo of Karen Waldron with medium-length dark hair](https://www.thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/127929998_waldron.jpg.webp?w=792&h=416&crop=1)
Karen Waldron was found guilty of sexual assault by magistrates in Cirencester. (Gloucestershire Police)
A Gloucester woman who grabbed a trans man’s genitals after demanding to know what sex he was has been convicted of sexual assault.
Karen Waldron, 53, was found guilty and forced to pay £300 compensation to the victim, fined £150 and ordered to pay court costs of £149 with a surcharge of £1.
It follows her arrest on 6 February after she approached the man, who is in his 20s and has been transitioning since 2016, in Yates bar in Cheltenham, and asked him “are you male or female?”
At the time, in a bid to defend her actions, Waldron told officers the touching while the victim was on the dancefloor with a friend was not sexual, the BBC reports.
However, prosecutor Graham Dono said when the victim explained he was a male “Waldron responded by saying ‘Are you sure?’, to which he replied ‘It’s none of your business’.
“Waldron then placed her hand between his legs, grabbed his genitals and squeezed, no doubt to try to establish that he was a male.
“He responded by asking the woman what was she doing and told her that it was not appropriate.”
Waldron replied “I don’t care”, but following the victim reporting her to the venue’s door staff, Waldron admitted what she had done, Dono said.
At Cirencester Magistrates’ Court, she denied any wrongdoing, claiming she was just looking out for a friend who had “taken a shine” to the victim.
She also claimed it was “more of a glance with the back of her hand that only lasted a second or two”.
Dono said: “Waldron was extremely intoxicated and this was a drunken and gratuitous touching of the man’s genitals.”
Finding her guilty, presiding justice Susan Bruckel said: “We’ve listened to all the evidence and whatever the motivation, or whatever the circumstances, touching somebody in their genital area is deemed a sexual assault.”