Linda Bellos arrested **Title edited by MNHQ to make clear that she was in fact 'interviewed under caution'**

Mermaids have been into the Yorkshire police forces to do workshops. What a coincidence!

There must be some serious campaigning going on behind the scenes. I can't see the police pulling in a person for questioning because a random member of the public says that they said something a bit hurtful...

Yorkshire again, eh...

Mermaids have been into the Yorkshire police forces to do workshops. What a coincidence!

North Yorkshire Police, apparently, according to Prick News.

What she said about self-defence is somewhere in the utube video I posted-I remember her saying it when I originally watched. She has a wiki entry which tells all about her. I'm just WTF.

Wonderful activist.

This gets more terrifying in its intensity every day. And ordinary women outside feminist circles don't even know the threat.

Women are being prevented from speaking of themselves as women. Talking of their experience of needing to defend themselves against attack is a violent act?

So is carrying a rape alarm going to be illegal? A rape alarm says that we know there to be a threat to our safety and we will be prepared and we will try to stop that happen Wing.

Saying that there have been significant threats to women at meetings lately is true. Saying that we would like to protect ourselves from those attacks as best we can isn't wrong. Do we have to say we will be happy to let those men knock our phones from our hands or drag our cameras and our bodies to the floor with us attached or let them punch us in the face? We say this by staying silent and not objecting to known threats of male violence.

This police action says we cannot even voice (just words) or declare (just words) our intention to defend ourselves from physical attack.

This is the darkest time for women for a very very long time.

@RefuseToDenounceBiology I am not sure why the police are playing into their hands.

The police are being used to harrass women.

It is so much like DV

This is terrible. The police are being used to harress women. There must be some way to legally challenge this. The idea one cannot defend oneself when attacked is utterly ridiculous.

I understand there are also 'hate incidents' which can be motivated by gender identity and are similar to hate crimes but don't actually meet the criteria of being crimes.

Police record them but I don't know what follows from that. I assume they are written down in some kind of register rather than formally becoming part of the offender's record - because no crime has actually been committed.

According to the same site if a hate crime has not been committed it still has to be recorded as a hate incident. Not sure how this shows up in the stats?

Whether or not a crime has been committed or it is an incident, if there is a transphobic element, it has to be recorded by the police as a transphobic incident. (since April 2008 the Home Office has required the police to do this).

"cannot imagine judges will tolerate this nonsense but I'm not sure"

MM and female pronouns.... 😬

This is DARVO and getting the police involved to harass your victim is a tactic often used by domestic abusers.

This is really escalating.

Yes I think a judge would take it seriously. The bench is groomed.

Which police force was it that interviewed Bellos?

Erm @MNHQ shouldn't the new title be 'Linda Bellos Interviewed Under Caution'?

The word 'arrested' is the misleading bit that needs changing.

Someone on Twitter is saying the other person to be interviewed recently is a "notable transsexual".

According to press for change, a transphobic hate crime is anything perceived as transphobic, including by witnesses. You don't even actually have to BE trans to be considered a victim of transphobic hate crime.

But there has to be a crime before it can be perceived as a hate crime. Whether or not a crime is viewed to have the aggravated factor of hate is in the perception of the victim; not whether or not it is a crime.

This stuff is falling under the purview of "malicious communications", I believe.

I'm with uterati (and Linda, obviously)

If anyone attacks me, I will defend myself appropriately - as the law states I can. Regardless of whether they have a protected characteristic or not.

I wonder how many people were interviewed under caution for stating what they would do in self defence in xyz terrorist attack?
Same thing no?
Self defence against an antagonist who happens to have a protected characteristic?

Dirty tricks and time wasting. I can only guess who was behind this...

So if I called the police and told them that my ex had threatened me deliberate and permanent harm, they would go arrest him?
The answer is no they would tell me that until actual harm is done its not their problem.So why is Linda being picked on I wonder.

@Flooffloof maybe if you told them you thought he did it because he thought you were trans they would?