The Harry Potter author described several transgender women as men in a series of social media posts.

JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.

The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.

She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.

Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.

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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.

      • iLoveFishing
        111·
        8 months ago

        You are the only voice of reason in this thread. Free speech is important and laws like this will be abused and used to punish political opponents.

        • saintshenanigans@programming.dev
          61·
          8 months ago

          Its not abuse when the political opponent is a bigot using hate and violence to build a platform. For the millionth time, you are free to run out there, make an ass of yourself, and use all the slurs you want.

          What you are NOT free to do, and what this entire conversation is about, is organizing and inciting people to commit a hate crime.

          Its pretty interesting that these things were fine when we’re talking about the civil rights movement, but as soon as there’s a trans or gay person around, your rights are under attack for trying to kill somebody.

                • saintshenanigans@programming.dev
                  21·
                  8 months ago

                  Have you actually read the law? Because i’m getting the feeling this is all talk straight from your ass. The entire bill is mostly a consolidation of existing hate crime laws with sex and gender added to the protected classes. Section 4 is probably the one most of you read about on twitter and are basing your entire argument on, it defines that you’re not allowed to say things considered harassment or to incite hatred. You cannot just pester one person for just being gay. YOU can’t just post about how bad you think gay people are and ask others to agree, because you’re inspiring new people to harass others.

                  Section 9 goes on to expand on this, and very explicitly states that freedom of expression takes precedence and you cannot simply be arrested for criticizing a protected class. Meaning, you saying “i don’t agree with transgender people, a man should be called a man” is acceptable. You cannot say “transgender people don’t deserve rights” because you are harassing them directly.

                  The rest of the bill is mostly defining what classes are, and indicates that a lot of the provisions are meant to be used with other laws, it says “offense” a lot, which seems to be getting interpreted as “i am offended” when they’re actually defining it as a crime that has been committed. They specify an example that the bill does not apply if you simply assault a police officer, but if you shout something at him about his religion or asexual identity, the bill applies as this is a hate crime.

                  Here’s a link to a document that lays the bill out in layman’s terms:

                  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/pdfs/aspen_20210014_en.pdf

                  So again, please explain your issue with the bill? You’re upset you can’t go out and harass gay people all day?

                  • gapbetweenus@feddit.de
                    2·
                    8 months ago

                    Glad that someone else actually read the law.

                    You cannot say “transgender people don’t deserve rights” because you are harassing them directly.

                    That exactly what I personally think is problematic, because I would fundamentally disagree that this is “directly” - but you are right that this is exactly that will be an offence under that law. The same goes for possession of inflammatory material (Part 3, Section 5, 47). Especially with digital media that seems rather murky.

                    Again I find Rowling opinion on trans people rather disgusting and genuinely damaging. But the law seems to me rather excessive. But maybe I’m missing something.