Teen with Aspergers convicted of transgender hate crime, he asked is that a boy or a girl.

Being unable to keep thoughts as unsaid thoughts therefore puts autistic people at greater risk of prosecution for crimes like this than non-autistics.

Dementia. Tourettes. Many conditions. This is an actively disablist policy. Likewise much of the TRA political lobby policy is racist and homophobic and deeply misogynistic.

The TRA political lobby's gambit is to argue that gender identity trumps everything else and anyone with gender identity protection is not required at any point to ever extend any, never mind equal, respect to other humans with different needs and rights protected under law.

This is where we see if the government roll over and agree that we now have a legal master race - and watch how that further destroys good feeling towards the LGBT community and relations between social groups - or is prepared to stand up for other humans having rights too. I won't hold my breath.

is this a potential hate crime if the HCP feels embarassed/upset?

No, because there wouldn't have been an intention to cause distress. However, that doesn't mean the Police wouldn't go after someone because it would suit their purposes. And more importantly in the present climate many women would not object for fear of an accusation of bigotry.

A scary part of much of this stuff is second order effects.

Wellbehavedwomen I take your point and I do agree. It’s just very shocking that this has happened. As for other conditions and disabilities; my grandad has dementia and has said some dreadfully inappropriate things to and about others. He wouldn’t even remember he’d seen them 30 seconds later never mind said something horrible.

Can I now ask the police to prosecute everyone who's ever called or written to me as 'Sir'?

Can I now ask the police to prosecute everyone who's ever wolf-whistled at me?

Of course not! - I'm a woman, not a transwoman.

December 2017

iNews 'NHS trust apologises to woman after 'nurse with stubble and deep voice' tried to take smear test'
(extract)
"The NHS has apologised to a woman who was left "embarrassed and distressed" after a nurse with stubble and a deep voice was going to carry out her cervical smear test at hospital.

The woman requested a female NHS nurse to perform the intimate procedure but was dismayed when a staff member with "an obviously male appearance" greeted her.

When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.” (continues)

inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-woman-transgender-nurse-smear-test-515660

If a vulnerable female patient asks/demands of the apparently male HCP intending to carry out intimate care or examination unchaperoned 'are you a man or a woman?' is this a potential hate crime if the HCP feels embarassed/upset?

And it's not just autistic people who will be affected by these ridiculous 'laws'. Any number of conditions and disabilities could lead to that kind of lack of inhibition and straight talking. Can we start a petition?

@aridapricot sadly, i think this is less about the pcso being 'offended' and more about the disabled teenager being made an example of by the CPS. It's horrific and i sincerely hope his legal team are appealing this. The thought of my ASD son being arrested for asking a legitimate, if insensitive (because autism) question in a few years is terrifying. How can we protect disabled people in the new trans police state?

Because that's what we're living in now.

If we all decided to ID as transmen could we start getting cat callers, etc prosecuted?

Thing is, a young woman with short hair getting this yelled at her would barely notice, because at least it weren't a gross sexual comment. Far worse happens pretty much every day, at that age.

Here a man is yelling it at another man, if the mantra of TMAM is to be taken at face value, and yet that's seen as a really serious offence.

The imbalance is really troubling. As is the heavy-handed response.

I'm also wondering at what point failing to use preferred pronouns will become seen as actionable. If things continue in this vein, that seems likely.

That twitter thread points out that the CPS declined to prosecute male voyeurs who secretly filmed women engaging in consensual sex - there is a pending Judicial Review - yet prosecuted this?

CPS are very proud of it on Twitter. (Link below).

Public order offences at the start were viewed as worrying in terms of freedom of speech. The police have used them to arrest protesters or anyone they’re not keen on, the wording is so vague. Using them against “anti trans”, or, in this case, an autistic young man who made a trans man feel a bit embarrassed is inevitable given the new “woke” identity.

But that poor person. Let’s hope from now on in, only polite criminals cross their path, or they’re in for a bumpy ride.....
mobile.twitter.com/cpsuk/status/1222558220100800513

I really dont think the police is the career for this PC, they need to change jobs qiuck.
My dad was a policeman (in NI so a bit different) but as well as being injured on duty more times than I can remember, spat at, attacked and called names, we had the army stay at our house for a few weeks when I was a small child due to a terrorist threat. There were never any arrests for this.

I'm sure there are plenty of PCs that have been harassed and name called, plenty our injured on duty throughout the UK yet ask a question to a trans person get labelled. Ridiculous.

@JanMeyer that's a really good point wrt ASD, actually! I stand corrected. I use ASD on here - I don't use it in speech - because it's briefer, really. My brother uses Aspergers, so grammatical or not, I will do so because he prefers it. Neither of mine have Aspergers dx because they're too young - they just have a diagnosis of ASD, and we use autistic.

ASD kids who have parents able to scaffold them/navigate the education system on their behalf are bound to do better than those who are carers for their parents before they are even 20.

Absolutely agree. The thing that is most upsetting of all about the current shitshow of SEN provision is that the 'lucky' parents are the ones able to borrow enough cash to fight through the system, and who know that they need to do so. And that's a minority. So are the parents able to pull their kids out to home ed, as an alternative. The rest of the kids - the majority - are just abysmally failed. But some autistic kids still know this, because their challenges lie in other areas. Not all kids are alike, and they do not need to be for this to be a grossly disproportionate response. That's the key issue here.

There's a real danger in always assuming the scenario that supports your position, in that those reading who do not support that position can dismiss us on that basis. I don't want to give ground by making unfounded assumptions, when the facts are already strong. This young man may not have known what he was doing was offensive, but would there have been a sentencing report? And if so, wouldn't that have been argued in mitigation? Yet there's no reference to that (which doesn't mean it didn't happen, but should mean we don't claim it as a fact, either).

ASD kids who have parents able to scaffold them/navigate the education system on their behalf are bound to do better than those who are carers for their parents before they are even 20.

This. ^

most autistic adults I know prefer to use identity first language, including my brother. You don't get to police that. I'll do what they prefer. As is respectful.

Being autistic myself I'm aware of that, but the point still stands, a person can be autistic, a person can not be Aspergers anymore than a person can be cerebral palsy. It's grammatically incorrect.
You ARE autistic, but you HAVE Asperger's Syndrome. Autistic is an adjective, Aspergers isn't, it's the name of the condition.
Same with ASD. How exactly can a person be Autism Spectrum Disorder?

ASD kids who have parents able to scaffold them/navigate the education system on their behalf are bound to do better than those who are carers for their parents before they are even 20.

@JanMeyer most autistic adults I know prefer to use identity first language, including my brother. You don't get to police that. I'll do what they prefer. As is respectful.

www.bustle.com/p/what-is-identity-first-language-should-you-use-it-74901

I also suggest you read what I wrote, instead of making a vast swathe of assumptions. I didn't say a single word of what you attribute to me, and I get just as enraged about the parents who insist that their kid doesn't struggle with XYZ, so it's bad parenting that mine do, as you do. My son has an EHCP and now attends an independent specialist school, despite being academic, and he's primary aged. You can imagine the fight we had to achieve that, yes? But you do not know this young man, and you have no idea where his challenges lie. You can't just assume that he didn't know that this was wrong, because you aren't familiar with his presentation. I did not say that he definitely knew, either. Plenty of ASD kids wouldn't have a clue. But plenty do, and the blanket assumption that he was unaware actually undermines the key point, which was that this was something that needed a caution, at most. It's the scale of the punishment that is appalling, and that would apply to anyone. Assuming that this young man definitely didn't know what he was saying and it was a dreadful miscarriage of justice weakens our case markedly, because you aren't being even handed. The point is that even if he knew it is still massively disproportionate.

If Freel had not transitioned, and remained a gender-non-conforming young woman, and Armstrong had shouted, "Is it a boy or a girl?" that would have been misgynist abuse. And I really, really doubt that anything at all would have been done, far less punishment on this scale meted out.

How is it very wrong? Who taught them that's its very wrong? I did. I taught my kids that you don't make personal remarks about other people because it can hurt their feelings. You can ask questions in a polite and respectful way, when having a nice chat about other things, but commenting as you pass them in the street, or as a starting point, will hurt and we don't want to do that. They don't get this stuff by osmosis, so I teach them explicitly. People tend to be hurt if you comment loudly on how they look. And the idea all 19 year old Aspergers young people don't know that shouting, "Is it a boy or a girl?" isn't okay, especially a natal male to a natal female, is a non-starter. Some do.

We don't need to massage facts to note that an unpleasant, but fairly trivial incident met with a dispropotionate response. THAT is the issue here.

Do you believe everything you read, Poota, or only the nonsense that claims that those who claim to be trans are the most oppressed people in the world. I must tell my youngest that, the next time someone gives her a pound change, instead of £14, out of a £20 note, because they know she won’t understand, or has food thrown at her and noises made, when out with her college, or men learning at her, because she has large breasts (even though she obviously has SN). What about the fact she was physically, emotionally and financially abused by her father’s girlfriend, which her brothers knew nothing about because of her SN.

All that stuff about that person’s past had absolutely nothing to do with that young man, yet it was all ‘poor me’, while the fact that this young man has autism and is a carer, was just mentioned in passing. Most oppressed, my fucking arse. I’m absolutely furious that people are so wrapped up in these lies, that they’re actually happy to see a genuinely vulnerable member of society punished, because of hurty feelings.

Maybe he thought the PCSO was suffering from PCOS?

Oh FFS. I don't think the police is a suitable career choice for this person. I can well imagine it entails facing abuse worse than that on a regular basis - sad I know but that's the reality.

I think being punished in such a manner for words is ridiculous. Aspergers or not. Yes, if was intentional it would have been hurtful and not nice but that's life. I've had plenty of hurtful things said to me in my life but would be horrified if the perpetrator had been punished so unjustly. I'm pretty sure the law being used was not intended for name calling but for verbal abuse where there was a realistic threat of subsequent actual physical harm. I was always taught sticks and stones.....

They are mind readers now?

So when a creep tries to hit on you and you decline, and they yell 'you're a f lesbian'. Crime or no crime?

When idiots can't tell the difference between a paediatrician and a paedophile in the phone book (yes it has happened) and yell abuse at some poor doctor. Crime or no crime?

When people use horrible language as an insult to someone who is disabled. Crime or no crime?

Would it have been a crime to shout 'Is it a boy or a girl?' at someone who was not transgender (or indeed not a police officer), does anyone know?

It seems possible within the definitions of Hate Crime in the CPS school guidance
If it was perceived/felt that the abuse was due to the the person being shouted out being perceived/felt to be transgender.

Context from the Daily Mail coverage:

(extract)
"Mr Freel has previously spoken of the abuse hurled his way, starting with bullies at his school when he came out as transgender aged 15.

He was physically and verbally harmed by pupils and had a rock thrown at his face from a car. When he left school and began working at McDonald's, he was taunted by customers and he would get attacked at the pub.

He went on to study criminology and criminal justice at Glyndwr University, Wrexham, and then joined North Wales Police.

He said in October 2018: 'I was born female but from my earliest memories and before I could even talk I knew I was a boy in the wrong body.

'I told my parents when I was a small child that I was a boy. However, I was brought up as a girl and began to transition to male when I was around 15.

'I went to my parents and explained to them how I felt and they couldn't have been more supportive.

'In fact they basically knew and had been waiting for me to tell them. I came out first as being gay and got a bit of abuse for that and I almost didn't want to come out as transgender.' (continues)

PCSO Freer was bullied at school (under 16yrs old) when came out as gay (lesbian?)
Freer then came out as transgender & was subject to further bullying & abuse including physical harm from, it seems likely, adults as well as peers.

Pre-verbal children do not conceptualise sex or 'know' they are the opposite sex this is contrary to long-established understandings of Child Development.
Katie Alcock's (Lancaster University Developmental Psychology lecturer & researcher ) article demonstrates how children 's understandings of catagories, including sex, develop:
(extracts)
"So, what exactly do these type of studies and quotes mean by “gender”, “sex”, “identity” etc.? What have psychologists found out about children’s developing knowledge of sex and gender?
Well, this research has been going on for a loooong time. All the studies I’m going to talk about are really robust — well replicated — this means that lots of researchers have found the same thing time and time again. We have known about some related aspects of children’s thinking since the 1920s or earlier and some of the main, older studies in this area are from the 1960s. This is not a flash in the pan.
What this also means is that terminology has changed. When this area of research first started, everyone knew, and was clear, that they were talking about children’s knowledge of biological sex. The terms “sex identity” and “sex constancy” were used, to mean children’s knowledge of whether they were a boy or a girl, and whether they or others could change into the opposite sex. Around the 1990s everyone started getting squeamish about the word “sex” and started using “gender” as a euphemism. Researchers, however, still meant a child’s knowledge of biological sex." (continues)

it takes children some time to work out both whether they themselves are a girl or a boy, and that both they and others cannot change sex. Working out which they are themselves happens earlier, and is based in all the studies that have been done on physical appearance and stereotypes.

So, based on the idea that girls have long hair and boys have short hair, James is also age-perfect in thinking that when appearance changes, sex changes too. Until the age of about 7 (yes, 7 — in some children it’s older) children think that when something changes its appearance, its underlying reality changes too. This doesn’t just apply to sex, it applies to pretty much everything." (continues)
medium.com/@katieja/young-children-reality-sex-and-gender-3421f4f165f1