Article on JKR and Hate Speech in Scotland

"God doesn't exist"

"Ours does, it's called science"

Let's make gender criticalness a religion. It will provide protection for it as a view and also be the most evidence based religion of all time

It also reinforces a sense I've had for a while that some people sort of need a religion on an emotional level. Doesn't have to be a God based one, it's the comforting belief structure that they seem to crave.

That is a really interesting point. There are so many political opinions from which dissent is increasingly impossible.

Indeed BovaryX, it gets more and more terrifying by the day.

And yes Kittens one must not blaspheme against the Church Of The "Great Hairy Prong"!

That was reported yesterday in the Times as well Olly

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a36516f0-ba58-11ea-82eb-1588bf47a52f?shareToken=f6947882c6b9ed321414577fcf53b947

Hateful words were actually directed towards women by transpeople and there was clear evidence of that. So not sure it would go anywhere

I don't share your optimism, @WaltzingBetty

There is currently a story running on Twitter where a gender binary TRA attended a Glasgow SNP branch meeting and four months later (!) wrote an account of how traumatised he was because of the abuse he received. Mhairi Black MP, SNP women's officer (?!) Rhiannon Spear, Ian Blackford MP all piled in saying how shocking it was - no questioning or going to the actual branch. Attendees (including neutral branch chair) all say it's total fabrication and the meeting was respectful and orderly.

We are not talking about reasonable people. The SNP has too many of these bandwagon jumpers with the agenda of keeping themselves in a job first, the good of the country second (maybe even third, fourth or fifth!)

I have no confidence that any good legislation will come out on women's rights (and the only increasing crime in Scotland is violence and sexual assault of women)

Has Joanna Cherry commented on this at all?

and then immediately looks to replace it with the secular equivalent

That is a really interesting point. There are so many political opinions from which dissent is increasingly impossible.

I also strongly suspect it won't include sex as a characteristic

The characteristics are—
(a) age,
(b) disability,
(c) race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins,
(d) religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation,
(e) sexual orientation,
(f) transgender identity,
(g) variations in sex characteristics.

beta.parliament.scot/-/media/files/legislation/bills/current-bills/hate-crime-and-public-order-scotland-bill/introduced/bill-as-introduced-hate-crime-and-public-order-bill.pdf

This is the same as the set of protected characteristics under UK Hate Crime law but additionally includes "age" and "variations in sex characteristics".

Compared to the Equality Act 2010, these are the "missing" protected characteristics:
gender reassignment;
marriage and civil partnership;
pregnancy and maternity;
sex.

(I also strongly suspect it won't include sex as a characteristic)

They asked Engender who told them women didn’t need protection (unless they were Uber women obviously)

Oh thanks for that article. I'll link to it in the other Hate Crime thread.

It's so ironic that the Bill seeks to get rid of the blasphemy law and then immediately looks to replace it with the secular equivalent.

Well, God is a matter of opinion, but gender is mandatory, obviously.

(I suspect that the thing we're not allowed to blaspheme against actually starts with a p and ends with an s.)

Then you'd have to show that hatred towards trans people was likely as a result of the words

My understanding is that, in England at least, a hate crime depends on how it is perceived by the "victim", not the person committing the crime. Which makes this:

"criminalises spoken and written words likely to “stir up hatred”, even unintentionally, towards people based on certain characteristics"

Very problematic. As I read it JKRs post alone would be considered hate speech by TRAs, which means that is how it would be treated. In addition her post garnered thousands of likes and retweets and inspired probably hundreds of spin off posts, media articles etc. Definitely stirring up...

This potential law is terrifying and incredibly poorly thought through. (I also strongly suspect it won't include sex as a characteristic)

I despair at what is happening in Scotland with the erosion of women's rights. And this from a party led by a woman! But as long as Indyref gets top billing, the rest sneaks by unnoticed. Still not a single response from any of the MSPs I wrote to re the diversity on public boards issue

It's so ironic that the Bill seeks to get rid of the blasphemy law and then immediately looks to replace it with the secular equivalent.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic but I think the article is reaching a little. If the bill aims to:
criminalises spoken and written words likely to “stir up hatred”

Then you'd have to show that hatred towards trans people was likely as a result of the words. In JK's example the opposite was true. Hateful words were actually directed towards women by transpeople and there was clear evidence of that. So not sure it would go anywhere.

Interesting how 'choke on my fat girl dick' 'die in a fire' etc isn't hateful...

Is there any chance at all it won't pass? I've seen the justice minister getting a bit of heat for apparently not understanding the terms of his own Bill...