To think when police resources are allegedly so stretched and crime levels are on the rise, this isn't a good use of an inspector's time?

[GabrielleNelson]

twitter.com/HarryTheOwl/status/1110503943245688832 Twitter thread starts here.

EweSurname collated it on another thread. Conversation between Harry and a police inspector goes like this:

Harry The Owl - Limerick Criminal
‏@HarryTheOwl*
I am stunned, shocked, upset, aghast and fuming.Just had Inspector Wilson from @Humberbeat call me re my complaint

Me: Did I commit a crime?
Him: No. But you have upset a lot of people in the trans community.
Me: I do not believe Trans women are women. How do I state that without it causing upset?
Him: Why would you tweet that? Why do you feel the need?

Me: Because I am taking part in a national conversation.
Him: But why do you feel the need to do that?
Me: Because I am a citizen and believe political engagement is necessary. Why are you asking me this?
Him: Because I don’t see why you feel the need to say this.

Me: I can’t believe you, a police inspector, are questioning my involvement in politics. What right have you to do that?
Him: You do have the right. I’m just asking why you feel the need to engage in hate.
Me: Hate? Where’s the fucking hate?
Him: Maybe it’s the wrong wording.

Me: you are a fucking Inspector. You do not get to tell me that expressing a legally held view is hate. And you don’t get to pressure me to stop debating politically.
Him: If you swear, I will end this conversation.

Me. Ok. But I’m angry that you are ringing me and asking me why I’d want to be involved in politics.
Him: You have every right to be involved in politics. But why would you tweet your views when it upsets the trans community?

Me: let me get this straight. I said I do not believe trans women are women, and you ask me why I feel the need to tweet that. Right?
Him: Right. Exactly.
Me: I am ending this conversation now.
Hangs up

I am devastated.

Now, whether or not you think transwomen are women, transmen are men, there are obvious freedom of speech issues here.

Last week Caroline Farrow was called by the police because she had misgendered Susie Green's child on Twitter and she was lambasted by Piers Morgan and Susannah Reid on GMB yesterday for not being nice.

On Thursday Dr Julia Long was physically ejected from a public meeting for which she had a ticket by seven police officers because the people running the meeting thought she might be about to ask an awkward question.

What's going on here? When did the police get powers to stop people being blunt and causing hurt feelings to the thinskinned?

This worries me.

I read that on Twitter when it was first posted. I thought it was a joke at first. Scary stuff.

No, he initiated a complaint because the police contacted him after someone else complained about his posts on Twitter. Harry feels that the police didn't handle that original matter appropriately. It isn't a waste of police time to complain in those circumstances.

It is, in my view, a waste of police time:

(a) to ask them to speak to someone on Twitter about anything other than threats of violence, incitements to others to commit acts of violence or similar serious matters

and

(b) to ring up a person who has complained about a police action and ignore that in favour of telling the complainant that if he'd only been a little bit nicer none of this would ever have happened and no matter how strongly he feels about an issue maybe he should keep his mouth shut if there's a chance that speaking his mind could make someone else upset.

It is not pleasant to have one's feelings hurt. However, part of living in a civil society is learning to cope with the fact that we don't all agree on all issues. If you want to change somebody's mind it doesn't do much good just to tell them to shut up. We should all be able to recognise that now. I genuinely and naively thought that making it socially unacceptable to say racist things had helped to reduce the amount of racism in our society. What's happened over Brexit and since has shown me that it didn't. People went on thinking the same things but now they feel they can say them again. It takes more than a ban to change minds. It needs a debate and a genuine change of heart.

^ what Gabrielle said

Go on then how, I would be interested to see stats so I can compare

Whatever stats How posts, bear in mind that the number of instances of a transwoman encountering men in a men’s toilet will probably FAR outweigh the number of instances of a woman encountering a transwoman in the women’s toilets. I’m sure How will adjust the stats to take that into account though, right?

Secondly, I’m sure they will take into account the instances of intimidation, flashing and filming that probably never make the crime stats too.

As for the whole "it's putting women at danger in public toilets' argument, try comparing the number of women attacked by trans women in public toilets and compare it to the number of trans women/men attacked in public toilets.

You've got those figures then have you? How about comparing it to the number of women attacked by all male people, whether in public toilets or not? It's not just about being "attacked", women have a right to feel safe, away from the male gaze when vulnerable and have their privacy and dignity respected. It should not be all about MTF trans and what they want.

Do you think it wasn't a statement about how trans-women aren't really women? Why else would he have tweeted that?

Why shouldn't he be able to say that? He has a right to freedom of belief. They are male. Sorry, but Mother Nature isn't budging on that.

I don’t want men in the ladies’
I don’t think most men have any desire to go into the ladies’
It’s ridiculous that anyone would have to have it explained to them why
I’ve spoken to the blokes at work about this and they totally get it
Anyone who needs this explaining to them is on some sort of wind up

Male people who don't care about women's boundaries are exactly the sort of male people who shouldn't be in women's spaces.

If you suffer domestic violence or are raped, the price basically put two fingers up at you. Yes some try but we know what attitudes a woman is up against. Low conviction rates show the truth

Then the mess of csa and historical cases, let online now when they keep saying that lessons will be learnt. Does anything change?

So expect a police call if we state biological fact as a man's feeling swill always be more important then a women's. Maybe that's the fact we should be talking about.

No one in power cares about women's safe places, as if they had then the law would not have been changed.

Self id and the loss of women only spaces is thought acceptable as we are only women.

The definition of woman being changed, who cares?
Children being lied to in schools, who cares? Let's add it to the national curriculum.

Need a female nurse or doctor, who cares?
Here's a 6 foot lady with a beard, who is more manly than your husband. Accept it and shut up.

In pain, who cares?
Uncomfortable? Who cares?

Who cares what the women think?
Don't you know that women were getting too free... it's 2019 and time to learn our place.

Accept and shut up.

Well said.

Let online = let alone

As for the whole "it's putting women at danger in public toilets' argument, try comparing the number of women attacked by trans women in public toilets and compare it to the number of trans women/men attacked in public toilets.

This completely misses the point. It isn't trans women attacking women in public toilets that is the problem; it's the fact that a man who is not in any way trans is to be given the right to walk into women's public toilets, because anyone, male or female or anything in between, will be able to say "I am a woman" and challenging this will not be legal. So you encounter a man in your public toilet, washing his dick at the basins; the only thing you can do is run away, because he has every right to be there as long as he says the words "I am a woman".

Worse, a female aged twelve or thirteen, or even younger, may have the same experience and no idea how to deal with a predatory male in her "safe" space.

As for why a man might want to go into a women's public toilet, it's like upskirting pictures, isn't it, or flashing. Not something any of the men I know would do, but I (think I) don't know any sexual predators; it is absolutely a fact that some men do these things, and pretending that they don't is clearly stupid.

Exactly.