Twitter Row. Woman fined for transphobic comments

[GrimDamnFanjo]

Mother ordered to pay £300 to transwoman over 'transphobic' comments
mol.im/a/10911139

I posted because I was confused about what had actually taken place to receive this outcome.
Looks like I'm not the only one...

Have just checked the sentencing guidelines, for communication network offences-if the offence is motivated by or demonstrating hostility based on...religion, race, disabililty, sexual orientation or transgender identity, there is an automatic uplift which makes it more serious. This is the problem with transgender identity being given a protected characteristic within the law. So males who feel like women, are more protected than actual women.

Police forces across the country do not appear to be acting with any kind of consistency. The police recently got involved in the Hayden/Farrow spat which had similar implications and told her she’d done nothing wrong, but maybe she should think about not misgendering.

I imagine they were so fed up of Hayden’s complaints they were telling her not to misgender in order to de-escalate the drama and so they could satisfy Hayden by telling them that she had been spoken to.

Seems odd that she should get away with it and not Chiara.

https://twitter.com/cf_farrow/status/1529522272783974406?s=21&t=6blAFj0lVnP8rd9fZ1XyCA

Agreed

No one should be getting a criminal record for calling a man a pedophile, sacred caste or no sacred caste. What if she's telling the truth? This is the kind of precedent that will be used to criminalise victims for speaking up. If she's lying about him, there are civil remedies.

What are those, could you expand for a know-nothing?

I can't see any evidence she even made that accusation. From the screenshots the other person involved seems to have repeatedly been saying that they do or intend to access spaces with young girls.

Is there a general point here about accusations? Where is the line between raising concerns and making accusations? Are some people exempt from having concerns raised or questions asked? Are only some people allowed to do the questioning or accusing, and if so, who?

Would be good if there was better general awareness of this type of dynamic and how we can express or raise concerns and whether women are entitled to say they are uncomfortable with someone's actions, etc.

Turning up at court wearing that badge was somewhat antagonistic.

I don't think any of us can judge this without seeing the full conversation. It's not even he said/she said as far as the public's concerned. We don't know anything about what was said.
I wouldn't contribute to any crowd funder without that information.

I also think more details are needed here.

"You're a nonce" is very different from "I don't want you getting your cock out in the women's changing rooms in front of me and my kids, you might be a paedophile for all I know". The latter is a crudely expressed but perfectly legitimate concern.

And of course it will have been weaponised by a TRA who, it would appear, deliberately started this fight and then went off crying to the police safe in the knowledge that their trans status would shield them from all criticism.

If Chinzia genuinely made them feel unsafe, they would have blocked her on Twitter about 4 years and 51 weeks ago.

Turning up at court wearing that badge was somewhat antagonistic.

But there isn't a law against wearing antagonistic badges. People have the right to express an opinion, and to express it robustly. I frequently feel exasperated at the tenor of the debate on this issue. People don't have a right not to have their feelings hurt - that was made clear in the Harry Miller ruling.

If someone calls you a paedophile and you're not, then you can take out a libel suit if you can afford it. Most can't, in which case just ask Twitter to take it down.

On the other hand, if someone threatens to rape you with a baseball bat, that isa criminal offence. There is a clear distinction between upsetting someone with rude words and threatening them with violence.

Apologies to Chinzia - blooming autocorrect!

She had every right to wear whatever she wanted to the court hearing.

Calling someone a nonce when there’s no evidence of this, is wrong and potentially endangers them.

If she tweeted to all her followers, Caution: x person is a nonce, then that could potentially endanger them.

If there is evidence that a TRA or anyone else is a nonce, such as a previous conviction , then it’s absolutely fair game to raise it if they are aiming to influence public opinion and policy about children’s rights.

In this case, it seems (though we don’t have the evidence) that Chinzia compared the mindset of a biological man who has absolutely no feelings or regards for the boundaries and sensitivities of young girls, to that of someone with a sexual interest in young people.

It may be uncomfortable listening and unpleasant for the TRA, but it’s a reasonable point. Because in both cases, the person is putting their need for gratification (whether sexually motivated or for other psychological reasons) above and beyond the needs and rights of children.

It is a shame that the magistrate could not engage with this freedom of speech issue and regardless of how clumsily it was phrased, Chinzia doesn’t deserve a criminal punishment. I hope she appeals and I will dig.

Ivy Burrows is a self proclaimed ‘activist’. Burrows has appeared on local radio in this role ( I don’t live there, so I can’t say what Burrows was activating about…..).

if these comments really made Burrows feel that * couldn’t go out, that might not have been such a bad outcome, for the women and girls whose intimate spaces Burrows felt the self proclaimed ‘right’ to invade.

I d pay the fine for her, or contribute to the appeal.

www.starandcrescent.org.uk/2020/03/02/pompey-politics-podcast-fake-news-special/

9 mins in, Ivy Burrows talking about fake news.

Will the judgement on this be published? In the scottow appeal all the tweets were set out at the beginning of the judgement. I want to see what was said. I did see the twitter thread with ogilvi's tweets deleted.

I usually come down on the side of free speech. I don't think people should be convicted for arguments, even if they say things offensive or nasty, especially somewhere like twitter where you can block and end the convo.

But in this country there are a number of laws restricting speech, and its v possible that the insults or allegations reached whatever that threshold is. I think it's interesting and positive that the judge was careful to say that the opinions are legal, but the method of expressing them broke the law. 2 years ago I would not have been surprised to see that all confused and the judge saying the opinions themselves failed the test. At least there's a clear line there.

But I would like to see the tweets. It's not effective law if we (the public) can't see exactly what behaviour is outside the law. The vagueness will add to the chilling effect.

Sadly we won't get any of that info as it was only in the Magistrates' Court.

Ah OK thanks. I hope she does appeal it. I have read that the trans woman tagged her in, and in the thread I saw with only the tw's tweets it was clear she was continuing to conversation even though objecting to what ogilvie was saying. Stringing her along really. If the magistrate got it wrong we would all benefit from it being overturned.

It's not a sensible way to behave, but that isn't a crime. It might be that she said things way beyond the pale, but after scottow and other lower court decisions I am very suspicious of the verdict.

I think it's interesting and positive that the judge was careful to say that the opinions are legal, but the method of expressing them broke the law

They had to because of Forstater. (Thank you, Maya!) I suspect this magistrate, like the judge at Maya's first tribunal, would have been very happy to deem the opinions themselves illegal if that was within their power.

Unfortunately I suspect Chinzia is someone without the financial resources to appeal and risk losing, and will have been advised by her solicitor to just take the community service and let it go.

It seems completely obvious to me that Ivy Burrows is a rabble rouser who deliberately goads people online in the hope of having something to go crying to the police about.

If this is what has suddenly made her feel afraid to go out in Portsmouth and consider going back into the closet after five years of arguing with Chinzia on Twitter and never once thinking to use the block button, I'm a monkey's uncle.

This is just a nasty TRA weaponising the criminal justice system for political reasons and getting away with it.

The magistrate should have said "if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen" and fined them for wasting public resources.

What I meant to say is that I think the judge only pointed out that the beliefs themselves were legal so they couldn't be subsequently challenged on those grounds. It is pretty horrifying to imagine where we'd be without Maya's ruling.

We crossed posts there @TastefulRainbowUnicorn. I was responding to @Manderleyagain.

I totally agree that the acknowledgement that the beliefs themselves are legal is very welcome. Although the fact that we need a judge to say that the belief that humans can't change sex is legal is really quite horrifying in itself. But hopefully a sign that we're not quite living in the state of Oceania yet.

A crowd fund to appeal? Can you appeal if you’ve pleaded guilty in the first place?

Can you appeal if you’ve pleaded guilty in the first place?

People who plead guilty have been known to appeal a sentence, iirc.

If I decide to mute or block a trans activist that tags me on the grounds I don't want to get into a 7 hour Twitter spat or sued, does that count as a microaggression?

I read a newspaper article at the time which suggested Chinzia wasn't fully aware of the gravity of the charge when she pleaded guilty.

It seems likely to me that Chinzia may have been advised to plead guilty, and that she would get a slap on the wrist and put it behind her.
Unfortunately she has been given a month of community work/rehabilitation.

I don't know her circumstances, what age her children are or if she works but this is going to be very difficult for her to arrange I'm sure.

Drivers caught for things like speeding can chose a speed awareness course to avoid prosecution. A friend did one, I think it was one week/5 days, and she thoroughly enjoyed it and found it very interesting!

I just mention this for comparison as speeding can of course be a public danger whereas Chinzia has been in a twitter spat with someone very provocative and must give up 30 days of her time with all the expense and difficulty that arranging childcare in order to do this will entail.

It's a grossly excessive sentence.

Also for anyone on twitter I took the precaution of blocking the provocateur.

Compared to speeding and other offences, this does feel remarkably onerous in the vacuum of an explanation of the court's thinking.

Ogilvie was given a one-year community order with 120 hours of unpaid word [sic] and 15 rehabilitation days.

120 hours + 15 days is a lot of childcare to arrange and to navigate family and work responsibilities around.