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.

I’m sure I’d find a lot of this street preaching fella’s views offensive but in the UK, Religious Belief is protected in law in much the same way as Gender Reassignment (Equality Act)/ Transgender Identity (Hate Crimes) is.

One of those protections doesn’t trump another so the ‘gentleman’ in the story is perfectly entitled to express an inner sense of gender via sartorial choice but can’t expect followers of an old religion to immediately acquiesce to the demands of this brand new gendery one.

A tolerant society holds space for both the religious preacher and the person with the special gender.

I vaguely recall a video of a young gay man on MCR Pride weekend performing an impromptu but professionally accomplished and EXTREMELY dramatic dance routine right in front of a street preacher - a far more interesting response to a chance encounter of clashing protected characteristics than wasting loads of public funds on a pointless and unsuccessful prosecution.

It is nonsense as you say. But it is also proof that they are not much persecuted if misgendering is the worst thing they can think of to.have people arrested for.

Does this mean that I can't prosecute every person who has called me cis then? Shame. If I sued just the TRAs on MN I'd have been rich.