Street preacher's misgendering conviction quashed

[Imnobody4]

www.lbc.co.uk/news/david-mcconnell-street-preacher-trans-farrah-munir-appeal/

This is good news - conviction quashed on appeal.

Speaking from the witness box, Mr McConnell said: "In my view, I wasn't misgendering and I was gendering correctly."

He told the court: "I think people could have been offended but that's not the intention.

"My intention was to simply stay faithful to my beliefs, stay faithful to God and to stay faithful to my conscience."

He said: "I wasn't being transphobic; I was expressing what I believe."

After watching the clip again in court, Mr McConnell said: "I knew the person in front of me was a biological male and, therefore, I stayed true to God and true to my beliefs."

Mr Hawks (the judge) said although they accepted McConnell's words had been insulting and that Ms Munir had suffered "harassment, alarm and distress", there was no evidence the appellant had intended to harass her.

Good. It’s a dangerous principle to require people to participate in the delusions of others

I’m a Christian. I don’t at all approve of what he said, and I think his theology is simplistic. But I agree that he has to be free to say it.

A man suffered 'harrassment, alarm and distress' for being called a man?

Meanwhile the police fail to investigate 99% of rapes.

”Dave represents the first street preacher in the UK to be prosecuted and reported to counter-terrorism for ‘misgendering’ a member of the public while sharing the gospel.

Despite there being no legal obligation to use anyone’s preferred pronouns in the UK, Dave was later convicted by the local district judge and was forced to do 80 hours of community service, reported to Prevent and ordered to pay costs of £620.

While preaching in Leeds, Dave was asked, while speaking about a range of topics, by a biological male that self-identifies as a ‘trans woman’ whether God accepted the LGBT community.

Responding to the question, Dave, who encourages members of the public to ask him questions while preaching, said: “No, God hates sin. So, this Gentleman asked a question…”

Members of the crowd screamed at him: “She’s a woman!”

He replied: “No, this is a man”, to which a female member of the crowd shouted: “She’s just as much a woman as me!”

Continuing to calmly preach about what the Bible says about sexual sin and homosexuality, Dave referred to the individual as ‘this gentleman’ and a ‘man in women’s clothes’.

He continued to preach and during the afternoon was repeatedly verbally abused by members of the public, assaulted, and at one point had possessions stolen, including an amplifier.

However, rather than controlling the crowd, a police officer with pentagram tattoos started collating evidence on how Dave had ‘misgendered’ the ‘trans woman’ before arresting him.

Sounds like a parable straight out of the bible.

The account of the crowd interaction really does sound like Monty Python's Life of Brian.

I am concerned that there is mention of assault (presumably religiously aggrevated aka a ‘hate crime’) and theft that the police didn’t feel was necessary to respond to and nor does it seems to be mentioned by the court.

Fucking hell. I'm no fan of street preachers but this is off the scale nuts!

He had belongings stolen but HE was the one arrested??

The world has gone mad.

I think I recall, in the original judgement, something about the Mr McConnell 'outing' the tw as being transgender. I would translate that as Mr McConnell said outloud what everyone could see.

Glad it's been quashed, it was a stupid judgement.

He replied: “No, this is a man”, to which a female member of the crowd shouted: “She’s just as much a woman as me!”

I hate it when women say this.
My mum is on team with a TW and she said to me that they "has less testosterone than I do", as though that means they are more of a woman somehow.
Infuriating

Your mum would also be wrong about their testosterone level.

Yeah, but she believes what he told her. My mum has PCOS and he's told her that his testosterone is lower than hers. She calls him she and shares the toilets with him. No getting through to her.

That was a politically motivated prosecution. The CPS & the WY police both Stonewall captured and seeking Stonewall champion points - neither having understood (until they were forced to) that institutions meant to be politically neutral had no business signing up to an aggressive political lobby seeking to influence their decisions in favour of Stonewall's own queer theory ideology.

That hit hard, but is so true

The whole misgendering thing is nonsense. If I were called a man and referred to as he (I'm obvoiusly a woman, though back in the androgynous short-haired 80s I did get asked once or twice, jokingly I think), I might roll my eyes but I'd never dream of going to court over the great trauma!

Arggh wrong thread due to slow loading mobile site. Will report so it can be deleted.

I love the reference to ‘ this gentleman’. Anything but, I fear.

Politically motivated or religiously motivated? I think the reference to the policeman’s tattoos were to suggest a religious motivation.

Every time the police take this shit seriously they prove that they see transwomen as male too.

Every time the police take this shit seriously they prove that they see transwomen as male too.

There's no way a woman would get any police attention for having someone call her "he", is there?

His views about sexuality are offensive to me. I do feel sorry for people who feel upset or traumatised when they are correctly sexed. I do think that they deserve support to help them accept who and what they are. However, this person's request to be called a woman was femphobic and no reasonable person should support it.

And of course, crucially, you are a woman, so taking offence would be understandable.

@BoredOfThisMansWorld
@NecessaryScene
Exactly. Everyone knew a male when they saw one, especially the woman who shouted out that the male was a woman.

This.