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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To let you know thought crime is now a thing

317 replies

CalliopeMeansMusic · 20/03/2019 09:41

Apologies for the odious DM link, but this has really chilled me.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6827459/Catholic-journalist-questioned-caution-police-misgendering-someones-daughter.html

A woman is being investigated by police and faces a two year jail sentence for allegedly misgendering Jackie Green during a tweet. What has the world become when we cannot state simple, biological facts without fear of prosecution? And why do the beliefs of the mother and daughter (that they are now living as a member of the opposite sex) trump the beliefs of Caroline Farrow? I am all for protecting vulnerable people from hate crimes, but this is not a hate crime, and makes a mockery of people facing real discrimination and fear.

On the plus side, I may move to Surrey; clearly its ridiculously safe if the police have all that time to investigate this!

OP posts:
JessicaWakefieldSVH · 21/03/2019 12:38

if you meant new as in a new inclusion in hate crime

It’s not a hate crime to misgender, if it was it would be an ideological law and that’s wrong. Has anyone actually been successfully prosecuted for misgendering? I have only seen this in the last year or so, where activists like SG have made police complaints.

BigFatGiant · 21/03/2019 12:42

I think that parliament needs to consider enacting a free speach bill. Clearly the constitution isn’t enough as it is to send the message/protect freedom of expression. The law on hate speech needs to be clarified asdo the circumstances under which speech may be curtailed or may constitute a criminal offence. Is anyone up for starting a public campaign?

drspouse · 21/03/2019 12:58

They have not complained about what their mother did so whereas I don't think it was best practice it also seems to be a victimless crime

Many children who are abused by their parents don't complain, even into adult life. Likewise adults abused by their partners. This isn't a good criterion.

AstonishedFemalePersonator · 21/03/2019 13:00

They have not complained about what their mother did so whereas I don't think it was best practice it also seems to be a victimless crime

By that logic a murder victim can't complain so it is a victimless crime. Or the comatose woman in the US who became pregnant as a result of rape - she didn't complain so it must have been a victimless crime.

Xenia · 21/03/2019 14:45

Why this is currently such a big issue is because of social media. When speech meant chatting in the pub or posting someone a letter or trying to get a newspaper to publish your article not much got published. Now everyone is their own Rupert Murdoch on their own blogs and social media accounts.

PencilsInSpace · 21/03/2019 22:52

LimeKiwi I find your outlook on this extremely alarming. Throughout this thread you have made vague insinuations about what Caroline Farrow, Harry Miller and now Posie Parker have said, while providing no specific examples. So many of your posts have made my jaw drop but I think this one sums it up:

I would happily stifle the individual

(and yes I'm aware you said that in relation to Tommy Robinson and I'm happy to come back tomorrow to discuss the lessons we should have learnt from that example)

This thread is about a woman who has been investigated by the police for a potential crime and draws in examples of other people who have been investigated by the police for a potential crime.

Here's the thing - in English law we have a basic principle that everything that is not forbidden is permitted. If you want to live somewhere where the inverse is the case - where everything is forbidden unless expressly permitted - then feel free to move to North Korea or Saudi Arabia or any other totalitarian dictatorship of your choice.

So if everything is permitted unless expressly forbidden by law, as is the case in the UK, you need to be able to say what it is these people have said and how it breaks the law. You can't just say 'well look at their account', 'in general', 'it was more than that' bla bla without specifying what exactly they have done that's illegal.

You can try those tactics in a debate about ideas (but they're shit tactics so good luck), but when it comes to the law it won't wash at all.

There's a very good legal analysis of the situation Caroline Farrow has been placed in here. It turns out we have rather good case law around free speech and Twitter, thanks to the bloke who joked about blowing up an airport a few years back.

LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 22:53

I would happily stifle the individual

That wasn't me! Please, please read properly - I was quoting somebody else, that's why it's in bold.

PencilsInSpace · 21/03/2019 22:59

Apologies, Lime, you are correct. Here is your response to that comment:

Yes. That's what we're talking about!! Omigod lol.

LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 23:01

Apologies, Lime, you are correct. Here is your response to that comment:

Yes. That's what we're talking about!! Omigod lol.

Yes, because the person who was saying they didn't agree with me was in the same breath agreeing with the exact same points I was making.
I don't get why people aren't getting this. Confused

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:04

Thought crimes occurred in london tonight, so they had to forceably remove a pesky lesbian or two, for sitting on a chair prior to an event.

How dare they just sit there, drinking wine and eating pizza.

PencilsInSpace · 21/03/2019 23:05

I don't get why you can't produce any specific examples of what Caroline Farrow, Harry Miller or Posie Parker have said which you believe is illegal.

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:06

Linked because one of the panel is our old friend, the chief of police aka Susie Green.

LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 23:12

I don't get why you can't produce any specific examples of what Caroline Farrow, Harry Miller or Posie Parker have said which you believe is illegal

Well the stuff that gets pulled isn't easy to link to, is it? Seeing as by its very nature it's just that - pulled.
You can't deny Posie Parker has been pulled. Unless she's allowed back on here now? Even MN banned her, unless I'm behind and she's back.
Think she was pulled from FB too for a short period, apologies if wrong.
I don't do screenshots like extremists do, but I can see why people do now. To prove that they exist? I'm assuming that's why anyway

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:19

I don't do screenshots like extremists do, but I can see why people do now. To prove that they exist? I'm assuming that's why anyway

Non extremists can work out how to do screenshots too you know. It's really simple when you know how.

LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 23:22

Non extremists can work out how to do screenshots too you know. It's really simple when you know how

I know how to do them, I never said I didn't? Just that I don't do them but I can now see why people do

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:25

Just that I don't do them but I can now see why people do

You said 'extremists' do, inferring that we are extremists for screenshotting the fucking insanity that is raging at the moment.

Well, if wanting kids to be safeguarded is 'extreme', and if wanting rapists to be housed anywhere else than in women's prisons is 'extreme' then fuck it, I'm an extremist.

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:27

Talk about 'othering' people with perfectly normal expectations of society.

HellAndDegenerates · 21/03/2019 23:34

I'm an extremist... Yay...

To screen shot any thing you like on an android phone, press the down volume and power button at the same time. Don't now if that works on fruity phones.

To let you know thought crime is now a thing
LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 23:34

You said 'extremists' do, inferring that we are extremists for screenshotting the fucking insanity that is raging at the moment

I know I did. There's extremists at both ends. If you do too, I wasn't referring to you individually and being personal as I obviously didn't know you screenshotted insanity until you just said you did.

sackrifice · 21/03/2019 23:43

There's extremists at both ends

Both ends? Even though these 'extremists' at the 'Posie' [in your opinion] end are extreme because they says those extreme kinds of things that we used to know as 'biology' or 'facts'?

Right ho.

LimeKiwi · 21/03/2019 23:48

Both ends? Even though these 'extremists' at the 'Posie' [in your opinion] end are extreme because they says those extreme kinds of things that we used to know as 'biology' or 'facts'?

No, that's not what I'm saying. Why try to explain further? It's clear from the thread people really really don't want to get it or can't.
Before I get accused of derailing again, I was tagged and referenced and I got sucked back in when I'd gone away.

PencilsInSpace · 21/03/2019 23:51

Fucking hell sackrifice, thanks for sharing that Shock

This is where we're at - seven police officers have forcibly removed two lesbians from an event organised by Accenture. The event was publicly advertised as 'inclusive', the lesbians booked tickets like normal people, sat on chairs like normal people, drank wine and ate pizza like normal people and waited for the event to start like all the other normal people there.

Yet they were removed for being disruptive.

We all know why, it's because dissenting opinions will not be tolerated.

TRAs have mostly stopped explicitly parroting #NoDebate (because they've realised it makes them look like intolerant wankers). Nevertheless, #NoDebate lives on. The fact that it needs and gets seven police officers to enforce it is testimony to both its cultural power and its extreme fragility.

Shit stinks.

sackrifice · 22/03/2019 00:00

No, that's not what I'm saying

i'm literally quoting the words that you are typing. If that isn't what you are saying, use the words that mean the things you want to say.

sackrifice · 22/03/2019 00:02

The event was publicly advertised as 'inclusive', the lesbians booked tickets like normal people, sat on chairs like normal people, drank wine and ate pizza like normal people and waited for the event to start like all the other normal people there.

Compare and contrast to Bristol. Where police officers were in attendance and stood by whilst women were barricaded in corridors by masked men, at their own event.

LimeKiwi · 22/03/2019 00:03

Oh for goodness sake. What? That clip you linked to.
Julia Long? As in the same person where there was a meeting shown on Twitter a while back, a video of a slideshow - "this is a man in a dress, this is too?" cue laughter.
Again sorry if wrong but pretty sure same person.
I stand corrected if not.
If it is the same person then no wonder there was complaints made beforehand. The question would have been were they really there because they wanted to be/interested in the topic or just there to stir shit.
Before anyone asks - I read. A lot. On both sides. Which is how I know.