Supreme Court - what about pronouns and hate crimes.

[Notaboutme11]

Where does the Supreme Court ruling leave us on pronouns and hate crimes? This really is a genuine question from me. I’ve spent the last few years worrying that if I accidentally mis-gender anyone at any of my work places by using the wrong pronoun or forget and use a former given name, then I could be subject to a disciplinary offence and dismissed and potentially reported to the police for a hate crime. I know there are people who have had this happen to them. I really do want to understand how this will be dealt with going forward.

Im sure we can all ignore these silly pronouns - just like most of us have done all along

Misgendering someone is not a crime.

All hate crimes related to the non-crime of misgendering should be revoked with a personal apology from the police in their own unpaid time.

The SC ruling was specifically related to interpretation of the Equality Act 2010, which doesn’t cover hate crimes.

Misgendering hasn’t been tested by the courts yet (this fact was alluded to in the Forstater judgment), but in any case, I can’t envisage a scenario whereby an employer could justify disciplining you for accidentally misgendering someone (although I appreciate your concern that they might give it a go anyway).