Throughout decades, there have been countless stories of women posing as men to either protect themselves or sometimes to get ahead in a male-dominated society. But the present situation is slightly different. You will come across people breaking the stereotype; free spirited women dressed like men, also men posing like women and posting them on their social media account. Apart from being fun and bold, there have been events that have hurt the sentiments, feelings and trusts of many. Much like the recent news of a 31-year-old woman from Uttarakhand was arrested by police for posing like a man to marry two women and allegedly torturing first wife.

The accused was identified as Krishna Sen, alias Sweety Sen originally from Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh, enticed women on Facebook. According to media reports, the woman dressed like a man continued hiding her identity for four years. And her ‘wives’ could never discover the truth for years until a medical examination was done. But Krishna is not the only man; there have been many. Let us look back and witness few related cases around the globe:

Case 1: Gayle Newland from Manchester, United States of America was convicted in the year 2015 and sentenced to eight years in prison as she pretended to be a man to dupe her female friend into sex. She told the court that she adopted a male persona online called Kye Fortune to seduce a fellow student at the University of Chester in 2011. She also created 10 fake accounts to raise fraudulent payment while she was working for a marketing agency in 2015.

Case 2: Adele Rennie pretending to be a man named Mathew in his Tinder profile was exposed in December 2017, while she persuaded a single mother Samantha Howarth. A nurse by profession at Cross House Hospital near Kilmarnock  in Scotland has tricked many women with her fake online aliases for many years. She admitted committing offences related to 10 women between the year 2012 and 2016. Rennie was declared jail for 22 months.

Case 3: Durrah Faiqah Mohammad Mokhtar, was in a relationship with the victim, who was a Malaysian, for more than a year though they did not meet in person. The court heard that it all started in April 2014, when Durrah set up online profiles on Instagram and Facebook, pretending to be a male pilot. The victim has sent Durrah about 10 photographs of herself, which were either topless or in underwear. The Malaysian wanted to split up as Durah denied to meet her in person. But the accused threatened to post those photos online as he sent them to the victim’s brother. Durah is originally from Singapore and on February 2018, she was sentenced in prison for five months.

Where, these cases of women posing as men have been taken care by law as the accusers are serving in prison, there is a reverse story too. In January 2018, a Police constable from Chennai killed a 22-year-old man who allegedly cheated him posing as a woman on Facebook. S Ayyanar, a teaching student, created a woman's fake profile on Facebook, where he started an online relationship with Police constable Kannan Kumar. The 32-year-old policeman killed the 22-year-old man with the help of three others after he came to know about the victim’s identity.

The reason behind such adaption has remained unknown. What is it? Are they confused over their sexual identity? Is it a mere sinister desire to control, frighten and manipulate? Or are they scared of the society’s reaction over their choice? It is indeed a matter of debate. But abusing someone’s trust cannot be reasonable.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 16, 2018 02:09 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).