Harry Potter creator JK Rowling could face police investigation over an individual’s “misgendering” in a brand new hate crime introduced in Scotland.
Rowling moved to Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, within the Nineteen Nineties before she published any of the books Harry Potter books that made her a household name and one in all the richest women in Britain
However, in recent times she has gained greater fame for sharing her controversial views on transgender people, which some LGBTQ+ activists have deemed “transphobic”, which she has all the time denied.
But whatever her view on the difficulty, a few of her comments, including deliberately labeling someone because the unsuitable gender, could land her in hot water under Scotland’s recent Hate Crime and Public Order Act, says a minister of the ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) ).
said Siobhian Brown, SNP social security minister Telegraph that, for example, calling a transgender woman “he” as a substitute of the pronouns corresponding to her gender identity could be considered against the law.
“It can be reported and an investigation can be carried out. “Whether or not the police consider this a crime is a matter for Police Scotland,” she said.
Brown added that Police Scotland had undergone “a lot of training over the last year” on the brand new law, which got here into force on Monday, and was confident of enforcing it properly.
“The bill sets a very high threshold, which is up to Police Scotland, and what would have to be said online or in person would be threatening and offensive,” she said.
But Brown went on to elucidate that while the SNP supports everyone’s “freedom of expression”, it’s unacceptable for people “in our society to live in fear or be made to feel like they don’t belong”, she told the BBC 4 radio programme. Today. She also added that Rowling “had no right to make people feel uncomfortable or judge someone badly,” but that ultimately what happened in individual circumstances would be as much as the police.
The revised hate law expands existing law that got here into force many years ago to forestall racist abuse and criminalizes “incitement of hatred”.
Reaction to the bill was mixed: Rowling, who doesn’t imagine that transgender women are women, vowed to proceed “calling a man a man” after the “absurd law” comes into force. Telegraph.
But others defended him, including Gemma Stone, a transgender author and co-founder Trans writes news site.
“The new law seeks to include transgender people and other protected characteristics in legislation that seeks to protect these groups from inciting hate,” Stone said. Newsweek.
She also accused transgender critics like Rowling of “already jumping at the opportunity to fall on their swords and martyr themselves for the cause, even imagining the prison sentences they would happily serve.”
“Which, honestly, I wholeheartedly support,” Stone added. “Anything to get her to log off for a while. I’m bored hearing about her when there are so many amazing trans people to talk about instead.”
In Monday’s posts, Rowling doubled down on her stance.
“In passing Scotland’s Hate Crime Bill, Scottish lawmakers appear to have given more importance to the feelings of men pursuing their idea of femininity, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than to the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls,” she wrote in X. formerly Twitter.
“The recent laws is wide open to abuse by activists who need to silence those of us who talk concerning the dangers of eliminating same-sex spaces for women and girls, the nonsense drawn from crime data when violence and assaults are recorded sexual crimes committed by men as women’s crimes, the grotesque injustice of allowing men to compete in women’s sports, the injustice of ladies’s work, the honors and opportunities exploited by trans-identified men, and the fact and immutability of biological sex.”
🎉🌼🌸April Fool’s Day! 🌸🌼🎉
Just kidding. Of course, the people mentioned in the above tweets are not women at all, but men, for one of them.
In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Bill, Scottish lawmakers appear to have given greater importance to the feelings of men carrying out their…
— JK Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024
However, Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf played down concerns that activists could abuse the law.
“If your behavior is not threatening or abusive and not intended to incite hatred, you have nothing to worry about,” he said. News from heaven on Monday.
Anti-LGBTQ+ hate data
Nearly half of all transgender people in Scotland have experienced a hate crime or incident due to their gender identity within the last 12 months, based on a 2017 report by LGBTQ+ advocacy group Stonewall Scotland.
Research by the British government also revealed the variety of hate crimes recorded by
According to a 2017 national LGBT+ study, police use based on sexual orientation or being transgender increased by 27%.
More recent data from Police Scotland found that in “the vast majority (89 per cent) of hate crimes that aggravated transgender identity, the perpetrator showed prejudice against people from the transgender community.”
Opinions are divided
One one that supported the bill and sometimes sparred with Rowling on X is transgender TV presenter India Willoughby, who recently threatened the creator with legal motion over her comments. She asked why the gender aspect of law attracts a lot attention and debate.
“Why are the British media portraying this law as ‘controversial’? Scotland stands against hate? Wow. It is telling that although the new laws also cover race and religion, it is ONLY the fact that transphobic harassment could be stopped that attracts criticism, ” she he wrote on X
Others, however, agreed with Rowling.
“Is Scotland a democracy or a totalitarian state? @theSNP deserves to be annihilated and consigned to history forever for introducing hate speech laws. April 1, 2024 will be remembered as a truly dark day for Scotland 😔,” wrote @ozzyjellyellie on X.
@gardensr4health added: “Draconian hate speech laws come into force in Scotland today. Interestingly, misogyny is protected. Shocking. This law goals to dismantle the feminist movement against men in women’s space. Women will be arrested for not wanting a person of their locker room! Madman.”
Credit : www.newsweek.com
