That is why the Free Speech Union suspects that this case will be such a big deal, way above and beyond what NUFC, Northumbria Police and Looney Toon Trans Allies have put Linzi through with their campaign of harassment, intimidation and discrimination.
Obviously, the targets will hardly all all GC feminists, that's not the issue. The big picture is the backdoor introduction of a Social Credit System by a loose alliance of corporations, NGOs, the public sector, Police and wider Criminal Justice System.
Other examples:
de-banking for political views;
sanctions by statutory professional standards bodies and employers,
eg. Social Worker Rachel Meade, which happens to be a "GC issue" so we know about it, care about it, are appalled and support Rachel.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions . . .
I am all for repealing the GRA2004 but if it was struck off the statute books tomorrow it would have no impact on the judicial and extra-judicial victimisation of individuals perceived to be "hostile" (eg. "unfriendly") to "transgender people" (including cross-dressers, people who use they/them pronouns, etc.)
CPS Homophobic, Biphobic and Transphobic Hate Crime - Prosecution Guidance
Feb 2023
Hostility
"Hostility is not defined in the Act. Consideration should be given to ordinary dictionary definitions, which include ill-will, ill-feeling, spite, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment, and dislike."
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/homophobic-biphobic-and-transphobic-hate-crime-prosecution-guidance
CPS Trans Equality Statement
1 July 2019
“Trans or transgender are terms for people whose gender identity does not correspond with their birth gender. . . . It includes those who identify as male and female and incorporates intersex, gender nonconforming or gender variance, for example those who might identify as non- gender, non-binary or gender fluid as well as those within the gender reassignment definition in the Equality Act 2010."
(Note: "the gender reassignment definition in the Equality Act 2010" is a reference to the GRA2004)
https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/trans-equality-statement
College of Policing - Responding to Hate
Oct 2023
"a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender,
including people who are transsexual, transgender, cross dressers and those who hold a Gender Recognition Certificate under the Gender Recognition Act 2004"
https://www.college.police.uk/app/major-investigation-and-public-protection/hate-crime/responding-hate
Note that "Hate" definitions apply to the five "monitored strands" and are independent of the nine Protected Characteristics under the EA2010:
disability
race
religion
sexual orientation
transgender
While I'm here . .
Misgendering
The Labour Government lied to legislators during the passage of the Gender Recognition Bill in 2004, or was foolishly naive.
Baroness O'Cathain
moved Amendment No. 50.
Page 5, line 13, leave out "all purposes" and insert "the purposes of this Act"
"My Lords, I return to this issue of Clause 9 and its blanket assertion that a person who gets a gender recognition certificate changes sex in law "for all purposes". It is notable that the Government chose to call this the Gender Recognition Bill, "gender" being a political term favoured by sociologists who like to think of one's sex as a fluid concept and something which can be changed. "Gender" is the word used to write most of this Bill.
However, in Clause 9 where it really counts, the word used is "sex". In law it is a person's sex that is said to change. In Committee we have had all the arguments about how ludicrous it is to suggest a person can change sex, but the Government are determined to legislate for it. However, it is not yet clear why it is that a person's sex must be changed in law for all purposes. I fear that if we leave this clause in, the law of unintended consequences will occur in spades. Who knows what speculative litigation could be launched by a person with a gender recognition certificate on the basis that he should, for all purposes, be recognised as a woman? Sadly, some transsexuals seem to be extremely litigious, and very anxious to use the law to try to force other people to accept them in their chosen sex. It may be that they have felt excluded for many years and then, having got what they think they want, wish to parade it. I think it is probably a human failing, but that seems to be the way it happens.
The reason we are here with this Bill is that Christine Goodwin insisted on pressing his case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. Before him we had Rees, Cossey, Sheffield and Horsham all of whom sued all the way up to Strasbourg. The Government believe that they have to conform to the ruling in Strasbourg. Do they need to go so far that, in UK law, for all purposes, a person's sex is changed? Is that the case in all 14 other European Community states, or are we, once more, gold-plating? I need not explain to your Lordships what "gold-plating" means. We seem to have been doing it for ever. I base that statement on all the experience that I had in the agriculture sector many years ago.
Once the Bill becomes an Act, a man really will become a woman in law. On the second day in Grand Committee, I gave the example of the BBC programme:
"At the moment there is an example in the news of a BBC programme in which a transsexual man was referred to as a man. Press for Change, the transsexual rights group is campaigning for the BBC always to refer to transsexuals in their chosen gender".
That is even before we have the Gender Recognition Act. I also said:
"That is indicative of the Orwellian nightmare that the Bill encourages. Will people who refuse to call a transsexual man a woman routinely face that kind of hostility? Given what we established yesterday"—
the first day of Grand Committee—
"which is that the Government believe that many people change their minds and revert to their real gender, or oscillate between the two"—
I must qualify that once more by saying that the Minister did not say "many"; it was the joint working party to which I referred earlier today—
"how are people to know which gender a person wants to be known as at any particular time? I say again that it is absurd to say that a man can become for all purposes a woman or vice versa".—[Official Report, 14/1/04; col. GC 64.]
There are recorded instances in the United Kingdom of individual transsexuals using legal threats to intimidate people into accepting their change of sex. Only last week, Elizabeth Bellinger, who took his case for recognition as a woman all the way to your Lordships' House threatened legal action against the Christian Institute. The institute published a briefing describing Mr Bellinger as a man, and Mr Bellinger says that that is libellous.
The Government seem to think that all transsexuals are delightful, kind and tolerant. Most people are delightful, kind and tolerant, but we cannot accept that transsexuals are different from any other sector of the population and that there are not some who are nasty, unkind and intolerant. The Bill potentially hands the more aggressive transsexuals a legal stick with which to beat those who disagree with them. We must do more to limit the scope for vexatious litigation. We must do more to prevent the courts running amok with the legislation, forcing it to new extremes of which, no doubt, the Minister would disapprove.
Later at this stage, I shall come back to crucial issues of religious liberty in respect of which clear, unambiguous protections must be put in the Bill. In the mean time, I move the amendment to find out from the Minister the purposes for which a person's sex changes. Why must the provision be so broad? Why must it make an assertion that not only conflicts with common sense but could be used in whole areas of law to force acceptance of a person's sex change on unwilling conscientious objectors? Why cannot Clause 9 say simply that the legal change is only for the purposes specifically enumerated in the Bill, which is, after all, pretty comprehensive? I beg to move
https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2004-01-29/debates/f813c7d4-41a1-4cfd-8115-6be9753889e5/GenderRecognitionBillHl#contribution-5c83f894-2b89-4d44-8c40-4369c5c01ffc
Lord Filkin
" . . . The noble Baroness also asked whether people who refuse to call a gender-changed man by the changed gender would be open to action. No, they would not, unless they had information about the person's gender history in an official capacity and they disclosed it otherwise than is allowed for by Clause 21."
https://hansard.parliament.uk//Lords/2004-01-29/debates/f813c7d4-41a1-4cfd-8115-6be9753889e5/GenderRecognitionBillHl#contribution-4f7e4ad5-5e65-4c3d-8b8e-b0a0d8094016
All these things, predicted by Baroness O'Cathain, have come to pass.
In addition, under Hate Crime Legislation, absolutely anyone can report "misgendering" to the Police as evidence of "Hate" = "hostility" = "ordinary dictionary definitions, which include ill-will, ill-feeling, spite, prejudice, unfriendliness, antagonism, resentment, and dislike" towards anyone who they perceive to be "transgender", ie. according to the broader definition cited above.
(Bearing in mind too that 1/3 of "Hate incidents" are reported and recorded by the police without any prompting from members of the public.)
A 2022 example of a Harassment conviction for "misgendering" is posted on the CPS website, tagged as "News" and "Hate Crime".
Leeds Christian preacher sentenced for harassing transgender woman
5 Sept 2022
"He referred to the victim loudly and repeatedly throughout as ‘this gentleman’, and ‘a man in woman’s clothing.’
The victim found this distressing as she had been outed in front of a crowd of strangers.
Elizabeth Wright from the CPS said:
“People have the right to hold opinions and express their views, but when words cross the line between a legitimate expression of religious views and become distressing and threatening, the CPS will prosecute offenders if our legal test is met.
“In this case, by repeatedly referring to the female victim as ‘this gentleman’ and ‘a man in woman’s clothing’, using a microphone in a public place, McConnell’s comments crossed the line between a legitimate expression of his religious views, to become a distressing and threatening personal attack.”
https://www.cps.gov.uk/yorkshire-and-humberside/news/leeds-christian-preacher-sentenced-harassing-transgender-woman
Pretty much a slam-dunk, anyone consulting the CPS website would think.
However, the what the CPS fails to report is that this conviction was overturned on Appeal - praise be!
It might not be over yet though . . . the CPS has been granted leave to Appeal.
Another twist of the knife to the heart of Free Speech:
"misgendering" = terrorism!
Dave McConnell vs Crown Prosecution Service
Appealing a conviction for a public order offence; misgendering
Tribunal Tweets 9 March 2023
Dave McConnell, 42, from Wakefield, was the first street preacher to be prosecuted and reported to counter-terrorism for alleged ‘misgendering’, is appealing his conviction this week at Leeds Crown Court.
Mr. McConnell was reported by the Probation Service to the government’s counter-terrorism watchdog, Prevent, after he was arrested under section 4A Public Order Act 1986 and convicted for ‘offending’ a member of the public in Leeds City Centre on 8 June 2021. He was convicted, made to pay costs of £620, forced to do 80 hours of community service and reported to Prevent.
Status
The appeal hearing was heard at Leeds Crown Court on 9th March 2023.
The conviction was overturned on appeal. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has granted leave to appeal.
(Multiple sources listed.)
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/dave-mcconnell-vs-crown
IMHO Linzi's case is so important because not many people are going to give much of a toss about harsh, unfair treatment meted out to the odd Philosophy Professor, Social Worker or Christian Street Preacher.
A football fan persecuted by her club, the Premier League and the local Plod, however . . .
Diego Maradona: “football isn’t a game, nor a sport; it’s a religion”
Turn that dial up to 11 as far as the Toon Army, and so many other fans across the UK, are concerned.
Number of football attendances in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2021/22, by league
(aggregate attendance in millions)
The Premier League is the most successful football league worldwide and in total there were 15 million spectators in 2022.
League One and League Two
Total attendance in the League One increased overall to 5.5 million spectators during the 2021/22
League Two total attendance did not really increase but held rather steady at 2.65 million in 2021/2022.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/686981/football-aggregate-attendance-by-league-united-kingdom/
That's an awful lot of people, most of them men, to royally piss off when they find out that their Club and the Premier League have a system in place to spy on them, ban them from attending matches and report them to the police if they say what everyone believes and knows to be true - that you can't change sex and that sterilising kids is child abuse.