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

[HairyPotter]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/duty-transgender-police-officer-left-17652064

While I completely understand it must be awful to be misgendered, it can’t come as a complete surprise that some transpeople don’t ‘pass’. If you can’t cope with people asking a perfectly reasonable (in their eyes) question, then maybe a job as a PCSO isn’t for you. I’m certain that the vast majority of officers have been called far worse with feeling the need to prosecute them. Maybe a different job or a thicker skin is required.

I think the assumption that this young man didn't know what he was doing because he is Aspergers is really questionable, tbh. Both my kids would know this was very wrong, and they are primary aged and ASD. If he knew, and it was because the target was trans, then that is shitty and some punishment would be called for. It's not okay to bully, harass, malign or abuse anyone.

I just disagree that a very large fine and a curfew is proportionate. Especially when you recall that the six foot tall male 21 year old who chose to repeatedly hit a 61 year old woman with osteoporosis, purely because she wanted to attend a meeting on women's rights, the day after announcing that he was going to, "fuck up some T*RFS" was fined less than half that amount, with no other penalty. And that individual was also caught on film physically intimidating a young woman on the same side, because she tried to stop the attack continuing.

My issue isn't the prevention of abuse. If this young man knew what he was saying was abusive, he deserved a slap on the wrist and the clear demarcation of what is acceptable behaviour. My issue is the disproportionate application of the law between the cases, especially when you recall the difference in treatment between this, and Selina Todd, who was facing actual threats of harm. In fact you could also look at the difference between the way tweets are treated when women are threatened with rape, torture and murder, and when someone tweets a limerick that offends.

For the first time I'm glad Labour lost the election. I'm glad that people can no longer pretend this is a left wing agenda, there is nothing left wing about any of this.

This is the removal of human rights and persecution of various groups behind a smoke screen. This is a parody of human rights.

Harry the Owl:

A week ago, I reported that my family has been threatened with rape and being skinned alive, and so far not so much as a PCSO has picked up the phone.

The double standards need to be continually highlighted.

We have an issue with the fact that people are being treated as criminals for shouting "is it a boy or girl." That a person with aspergers has been given a fine and a curfew. Do you hear yourself snow.
Just wait, soon enough your opinions won't be good enough either, the though police will be coming for you too. Nothing is good enough and the goal posts will keep on moving.

Yes, I'm sure there would be a thread here if the victim was anything other than trans.

Lots of victims here on this thread talking about being cat called and shouted abuse at them by men.
Oh even an office saying she's had bones broken and spat at.
There's been plenty of threads on here about this kind of abuse against women snow but the police don't count them as a hate crime.

even if you took away all the supposed concerns about self-ID etc, some people here would still have an issue with the fact that someone is trans. That's just hateful prejudice.

It wasn't 'some people here' tactlessly asking whether this cop was a boy or a girl. It was a teenager with a diagnosed disability involving social interaction, mind-blindness and communication. A disability that by definition is likely to make him less able to 'read' other people's feelings.

Would you blame a blind person for hate crime if they called a transman 'Miss' on hearing their voice?

My son does this at 7 with special needs he is going to get worse when he is older what will they do lock him up?

snowblight, I don't give a shit what people want to wear or call themselves. I do care that a teenage autistic has been criminalised and widely criticised for behaving like an autistic and stating the fucking obvious. Tone-policing like this is anti-autistic. Do you know anything about it? Have you any idea of the kind of pressure incidents like this puts on autistics and their families? I don't want to fucking walk down the street now with my 11 year old. Not because she might hear something that she doesn't quite like, but because she could be fucking ARRESTED for speaking!

@Poota that guidance literally says it's worse than bullying over racism or disability. And the reasons why are clearly bullshit.

Every single one of the aggravating factors applies more to a disabled child than an LGBT one, and I can't see many that don't also apply to black kids, especially boys, in the culture we live in. Girls and women are notably not mentioned at all, yet we are harassed, discriminated against, abused and harmed all our lives on the basis of sex - and school is one of the worst places that happens. One rape a day every school day of the year, and those are just the ones reported to the police. And how many less grave attacks are there - and disabled girls are the most guaranteed targets, too. There's an exponential growth in home ed for SEN kids. Most of them seem to be autistic, and bullying is often a key cause. How is that not an additional aggravating factor? That it cause a child to be unable to access a school education safely at all?

All bullying is bad and should be addressed, and LGBT kids deserve protection from harm and abuse, and also to be treated with courtesy and respect, as all people do - but to create a hierarchy in this manner is bizarre and wrong. Racism and ableism are not less serious than homophobia or transphobia. And misognyny is apparently not a problem at all.

@snowblight you surely can't think that that is okay? All kids should be protected from bullying, and those bullied for inherent factors should be protected equally from harm - no?

So a WPC can be asked 'are you a lezza?' or 'oi are you a bloke?' and be told to stop being sensitive and 'grow a pair' - yet this (Aspergers aside) is a hate crime, taking up valuable police and court time?

This person isn't robust enough for the job I think. I worked with a few people who worked as volunteer officers and they got dogs abuse when they were in uniform (and noone was convicted of anything). Why has this become a Teflon issue?

I think the assumption that this young man didn't know what he was doing because he is Aspergers is really questionable, tbh. Both my kids would know this was very wrong, and they are primary aged and ASD.

A person cannot "be Aspergers", he has Aspergers. Also just because you have two kids with ASD who are younger and would know something is wrong, doesn't mean another autistic person would. You know that saying you've met one person with autism? Well it's true, it's a bit annoying on mumsnet to be honest, the number of people who pop up to say "well i wouldn't allow my autistic child to get away with that/my autistic child would know that was wrong."
Almost like they can't concieve the idea that maybe another person's autism is different or more severe than their child's.

This case is not only absurd it's insulting, the police consistently do fuck all when disabled people are harassed in the street but they've got time to arrest people for asking a question.
But that seems to be the way things are going at the moment, trans seems to be prioritised over pretty much everyone else. I mean according to that screenshot Poota helpfully posted insults towards LGBT people are worse, because "people can be seriously harmed or killed."
And they list that as a difference, so no disabled people were ever attacked or killed then?
Funny, I remember reading a whole book about such crimes in the UK. But no, must have imagined it apparently 😡😡

I'm not blind to the other side of this, despite having a son with a similar disability.

If a large male teenager was yelling that question jeeringly in the face of a possibly much smaller female who was just trying to do their job, that is abusive.

But I disagree that the transgender status of the smaller female person makes it automatically a crime.

If he was asking it in an irritatingly repetitive, tactless but simply curious fashion, that's a different issue and more akin to saying 'Is that person really fat or pregnant?' or 'Has that man got paint on his face?' as one of my (small) children did about a birthmark.

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?

I used to work in an off licence and would regularly be called every name under the sun, for not selling cheap vodka to a 16 year old.
Or cigarettes or cider...anything like that, really.
And i was threatened with physical violence and sexual assault, many a time, too.

It was bloody awful, but you toughen up and learn to deal with it.

In a job like that you either get better, or you get out and it's exactly the same for the PCSO - more so, in fact.

wellbehavedwomen

How is it very wrong? Who taught them that's its very wrong?

slipperywhensparticus
It must be very hard to navigate all this. It's so unfair

It reminds me of the case of an Iranian refugee who was murdered by his neighbour because - well, he was basically a racist, thick, piece of dog poo.

The refugee had mental health issues and had been subjected to a campaign of hate from this person before being murdered. And the police did.......?

If the officer had not been trans - would this still have been a crime?

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

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.

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?

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.....

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.

Maybe he thought the PCSO was suffering from PCOS?

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.

@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.

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.

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?