JK Rowling has exposed the absurdity of Scotland’s Hate Crime Act
by Stephen Daisley, Spectator:
Humza Yousaf’s illiberal Hate Crime Act is now in force and its first day has been a doozy. The SNP’s minister for victims and community safety Siobhian Brown admitted on the Today programme that Scots could be investigated by the police for ‘misgendering’ trans people. It was revealed that one-third of police officers has still not received training on the legislation. JK Rowling posted a thread on Twitter discussing a number of transgender women and stated that all of them were men. The author, who is currently out of the country, added that, if saying this represents a criminal offence under the Hate Crime Act, ‘I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment’.
The Hate Crime Act creates a new offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ against a long list of ‘protected characteristics’. These are: ‘race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins… age, disability, religion or in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation, sexual orientation, transgender identity [or] variations in sex characteristics’. The law applies to all forms of communication, from spoken conversations to private WhatsApp messages, and since there is no dwelling defence, Scots will be liable for prosecution for things they say in their own homes. Penalties include fines and prison sentences of up to seven years.
Women’s rights campaigners are concerned that extreme trans activists will use the legislation, introduced by Humza Yousaf and passed with the help of Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems, to set the police on opponents of gender ideology. Under the new Act, it is not a crime to stir up hatred against a woman because of her sex but it is illegal to intentionally promote hatred of men who cross-dress as women.
Read here (£)
NB: No sooner had this legislation been passed than it backfired rather spectacularly as numerous people complained to the police about Humza Yousaf’s racist anti-white speech. (It should be noted that over 95% of Scotland’s population is white.) Ed
Read also: No joke. Scotland’s Hate Crime Act is absurd, but nobody’s laughing by Susan Smith, Artillery Row
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