threadeader: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1088144870991114241.html
"1. Got a call from Director, saying cops wanting to speak to me. He’d had sense not to give out my number, but said he’d pass on details. I rang.
- Spoke to PC from Humberside, introduces himself as representing the LGBTQ community on a report of hate speech by me. They’d found me via my company, had been all over the website & decided if I employed trans people at all, it was not a safe place for them & work should know.
- Cop said he was in possession of 30 Tweets by me. I asked if any contained criminal material. He said.... No. I asked if any came close to being criminal... and he read me a limerick. Honestly. A limerick. A cop read me a limerick over the phone.
- I said, I didn’t write that. He said, ‘Ah. But you Liked it and promoted it.’
I asked why he was wasting his time on a non crime. He said, ‘It’s not a crime, but it will be recorded as a hate incident.’
- So, I’ve added to a statistic, even though there is no crime, which brings me to my next point. The cop repeatedly called the complainant ‘the victim.’ I asked how there could be a victim if, as he’d established, there was no crime. He said, that’s just how it works.
- My comment was that by framing the complainant as ‘victim’, this made me, by default, ‘criminal.’ I asked him to desist from using it.
7. This is where it gets incredibly sinister. The cop told me that he needed to speak with me because, even though I’d committed no crime whatsoever, he needed (and I quote) ‘to check my THINKING!’ Seriously. Honestly.
- Finally, he lectured me. Said, ‘Sometimes, a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb and that is what transgender is.’ You can imagine my response...
- Lastly, he told me that I needed to watch my words more carefully or I was as risk of being sacked by the company for hate speech. At which point, I wished him well and said I needed to go and rinse my socks.
10. I’m fine, btw. It’s upset my wife far more than it’s upset me, though, and this makes me angry as hell. I’m considering my response to the Chief Constable because... FUCK ‘EM!"