Misgendering People: Should it be a crime

[Laan Yaa Mo]

The cancel culture/woke brigade is on the march again. They seem to want people charged with a crime if they refuse to accept the new gender of a man if he declares himself to be a woman. Hurray for Scottish common sense

JK Rowling will not face prosecution under Scotland hate crime law

Police Scotland officers log more than 3,000 complaints in 48 hours as force says the author’s comments online calling trans women men were not deemed criminal
John Boothman
Tuesday April 02 2024, 10.30pm BST, The Times

JK Rowling challenged Scottish police to arrest her after she had called trans women men in a series of tweets

JK Rowling will not face prosecution under Scotland’s hate crime laws after she made a series of posts calling trans women men, Police Scotland have confirmed.

On Monday the author challenged the force to “arrest her” after making the comments on Twitter/X.

In response to Police Scotland’s statement, Rowling said she hoped women in Scotland would reassured by the decision.

The development came as Police Scotland logged more than 3,000 complaints in 48 hours since the hate crime law came into force.

At least 60 reports per hour have been received by officers, according to police sources. Calum Steele, the former general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, the union that represents rank-and-file officers, said the true figure could be as high as 3,600.

Police Scotland said they would investigate every report made under the law, which became active at midnight on April

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act has been met with objections from Rishi Sunak, Elon Musk, Nigel Farage and Andrew Neil.

The legislation consolidates existing hate crimes laws, and creates a new offence of “stirring up” hatred against people on the grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation and transgender identity.

Police Scotland said they had received complaints about Rowling’s posts, in which she challenged ten high-profile trans people’s claims to be women — including the broadcaster India Willoughby and the activist Munroe Bergdorf, alongside convicted rapists.

Responding to the confirmation she would not be prosecuted, Rowling tweeted: “I hope every woman in Scotland who wishes to speak up for the reality and importance of biological sex will be reassured by this announcement, and I trust that all women — irrespective of profile or financial means — will be treated equally under the law.”

She also issued a further challenge: “If they go after any woman for simply calling a man a man, I’ll repeat that woman’s words and they can charge us both at once.”

Roddy Dunlop KC, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, said: “As many of us have been saying, the bar for prosecution, let alone conviction, is high — and I doubt we will see many of either. The problem is more likely to lie in the police being swamped with reports, and what happens in terms of recording.”

Commenting on the trans people in her thread, Rowling wrote on Monday: “April Fools! Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren’t women at all, but men, every last one of them.”

Willoughby, who reported Rowling to police in England for misgendering her last month, said on Tuesday: “The confident and rampant transphobia today after JK Rowling’s latest hateful tweet is appalling.”

The author earlier received support from Sunak, who said people should not be criminalised “for stating simple facts on biology”.

However, a spokesman for Humza Yousaf said: “The prime minister’s comments ignore the fact that the right to freedom of expression is built into the act and that it also has a high threshold for criminality. The legislation does not prevent people expressing controversial, challenging or offensive views, nor does it seek to stifle criticism or rigorous debate in any way.”

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, also defended the author on Times Radio on Tuesday and branded the law a “terrible piece of legislation”.

Keegan said: “People shouldn’t be criminalised for just stating biological facts and it does seem odd that I think one of the ministers in Scotland said that you could be arrested for misgendering.

“And I am pretty sure that the police in Scotland, as are the police in England, should be much more focused on fighting crime than policing people’s thoughts. So this is, I think, a terrible bit of legislation. It is not something we will be introducing in this country.”

Scottish ministers previously said that misgendering people would not be a crime. But Siobhian Brown, minister for victims and community safety, said on Monday that people risked being investigated for misgendering someone online under the law.

The police decision not to deem Rowling’s comments criminal was welcomed by the gender-critical SNP MP Joanna Cherry KC.

“This is a welcome decision no doubt made at a high level in Police Scotland but people, particularly ordinary, working-class women, can’t be expected to rely on a decision in a single high-profile case to protect their freedom of expression,” she wrote.

She called for the thinking that had informed this decision to be set out in publicly available guidance to officers.

Cherry also urged Police Scotland to confirm whether a “non-crime hate incident” had been recorded against Rowling. This is where the comments or action are not deemed to have reached the criminal threshold.[/quote]

[tamada]

See Jonathan Pie's latest take on this SNP farce.

[noosard]

Please

[tinpeeba]

What does the new hate crime law say?

A lot of the new Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act simply restates hate crime laws that have already been in place for well over a decade. But it also contains some new laws.

The parts of the Act that directly apply to hate crime targeting LGBTI+ people are:
The “statutory aggravation”, which restates a law that has been in place since 2010; and
The “stirring up hatred” offence, which is new.

The “statutory aggravation”
The statutory aggravation is not new for LGBTI+ people – it has been in place since 2010. The statutory aggravation law says that when any criminal offence is committed, if part of the motive for the offence was prejudice on certain grounds, then the offence is treated as “aggravated” by that prejudice. That means that it is potentially treated more seriously.

This law covers prejudice on certain listed grounds, namely age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, and variations in sex characteristics (intersex status). Sexual orientation is defined in a way that does not include ace/asexuality.

This law applies to all criminal offences, so that any offence (for example, threatening or abusive behaviour, assault, sexual assault, vandalism, etc etc) can count as being aggravated in this way. But the aggravation can only be applied where some other criminal offence has been committed. The statutory aggravation law does not create any new or additional offence.

For example, if someone is threatened in the street, causing fear or alarm, that can be the offence of threatening or abusive behaviour. If the threats used transphobic language, that is evidence of an aggravation of transgender identity prejudice.

If homophobic graffiti is painted on someone’s house, that is the offence of vandalism, and the homophobic nature of the graffiti is evidence of aggravation by sexual orientation prejudice.

If there is evidence that an offence was aggravated by a prejudice motive on one of the listed grounds, that will be recorded by the police. It will be taken into account by the procurator fiscal (prosecutor) in decisions on whether and how to prosecute. Then, if the motive of prejudice is proven in court, it must be taken into account in sentencing. That could mean a heavier or more appropriate sentence.

And the prejudice motive will be recorded at all stages, so that statistics can be collected on hate crimes.

This statutory aggravation law is not new – for LGBTI+ people it has been in place since 2010. However, from 1st April 2024, for the first time, a prejudice motive against intersex people (people with variations in sex characteristics) will be recorded properly as such. Previously, these were recorded as a form of transgender identity prejudice, which is not correct.

The other change that the new Act makes to the statutory aggravation is to add prejudice on grounds of age, which was previously not included.

Most hate crimes in Scotland are dealt with using a statutory aggravation. Remember that the aggravation can only be used when another criminal offence has been committed (threatening or abusive behaviour, assault, sexual assault, vandalism, etc etc). The aggravation is about recording and taking into account the prejudice motive for that offence.

It is important to note that it makes no difference what the actual sexual orientation, or trans status, or intersex status, of the victim of the offence is. What matters is the motive – why the perpetrator did the offence. For example, if a cisgender person is attacked because the attacker thinks they are trans, or because they associate with trans people, that is a transgender identity prejudice hate crime, and the statutory aggravation will apply.

In the year to March 2023, there were 1884 offences reported by police to procurators fiscal which had an aggravation of sexual orientation prejudice. For the large majority of those (86%), the offence reported was threatening or abusive behaviour.

In the same year, 55 offences were reported by police with an aggravation of transgender identity prejudice. 84% of those offences were threatening or abusive behaviour.

The stirring up hatred offence
Since 1986, there has been an offence of stirring up racial hatred. From 1st April 2024, a similar offence is being introduced to cover stirring up hatred on grounds of age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or variations in sex characteristics (intersex).

The offence of stirring up hatred on one of those grounds applies where someone behaves in a way that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, and they deliberately intend their behaviour to stir up hatred.

The law says it is not an offence if the behaviour was, in the particular circumstances of the case, reasonable. It also says that, when deciding whether the behaviour was reasonable, a court must bear in mind the right to freedom of expression, including that the right applies to expressions that offend, shock or disturb.
The law also says that behaviour does not count as threatening or abusive solely because it involves discussion or criticism of matters relating to age, disability, sexual orientation, transgender identity or variations in sex characteristics. To be this offence, the behaviour must be specifically threatening or abusive (not just critical), and it must be done with the intention of stirring up hatred, and not be otherwise reasonable.

To give an idea of what kinds of behaviour this might cover, in England there has been a similar offence covering sexual orientation for more than 10 years. A group of people were successfully prosecuted for that offence after they put leaflets through people’s front doors in an English city, calling for the death penalty for LGB people (and including a cartoon of a person being hanged).

Source: http://www.equality-network.org/our-wor ... -scotland/

[Khun Paul]

Sorry but I remember the ace Relations Act when it came in and guess what Race related incidents became a problem , before there were certainly instances but generally people accepted differences in colour ethnicity etc and was not a problem, but thin skinned people or those looking to reate problems used it for their own personal gain often.
This NEW Hate crime LAW will be the same the majority do not care but it will be used to create more problems than it solves, most people I KNOW do not care what you call yourself or what your sexual orientation is as long as you ( EXCUSE THE PUN ) do not attempt to make them believe their ideas.
Live and let live .
I have no intention of bowing down to their ideology at all, TWO genders in my book , only biological women can give birth , the other dozens of genders can call themselves what they want but I will not !!

[Laan Yaa Mo]

The important point is that if you call a man who now calls himself a woman, you will not be breaking any laws by saying, biologically he is a man.

Here is another article on this legislation, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/poli ... -8lpcwbrch

[Drunk Monkey]

Ive been guilty of miss gendering in my past ... it seems to occur more than after ive had a few Changs. I went to see the local quack and he rather strangely advised i go to the opticians.

He him she it her .. so long as they can push a mop use a washing machine , iron and make a proper a cuppa tea whose fussed.

I am currently identifying as a bicycle seat.

DM

[Khun Paul]

What a misogynist comment , expected better from DM !!