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JK Rowling has challenged Scotland’s new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred”.
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
No, but it seems like “stirring up hate” is a crime. And, as a public figure who is publicly hateful, she potentially fits that description
Yep, there really needs to be the distinction between private remarks and public instigation in free speech law.
Otherwise you’re not protecting anything except the right of the loudest to monopolize the airwaves via intimidation of dissent and “the other”
It’s not freedom of speech unless everyone feels safe using it, be it from fear of retaliation by the state, or by the tyranny of cousins.
It’s a delicate balancing act, but there is a sliding scale of speech acts, from the harmless, to bigoted, to hate speech, to incitement of violence.
There’s not universal agreement on where to place the line between protected speech and public instigation, but her public comments have been drifting ever closer to that line, especially with her most recent bout of denying Nazi crimes.
Not chilling protected speech is important, but so is enforcement against those who have crossed the line. Countries with stricter laws are generally those who have learned this the hard way.
Jfc, when did she start doing that?
Someone else posted the link, but a few weeks ago she described the idea that Nazis targeted research and healthcare information on Trans patients as “a fever dream”, despite the Nazi raids on Magnus Hirschfield’s Institute are a well-documented part of their crimes.
She claimed she was describing something other than the screenshot she quoted after people repeatedly pointed out how wrong she was, but it’s still a troubling escalation in her rhetoric.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/15/jk-rowling-trans-nazis-holocaust-denial/
According to the article the law doesn’t apply in a general sense.
It appears its written (along with another law) to only apply to an aggressor’s interaction with a specific person. So the law wouldn’t apply to Rowling’s comments from twitter about the group in general. No specifically named person is targeted.
Also, something I just learned from this about Rowling’s Transphobia that was strange to me. She doesn’t appear to have any problem with FtM, but only problems with MtF. I have never run across someone who has such specific bigotry in this case.
@partial_accumen I would suspect that a lot of transphobes are more hostile to MtF than FtM, if you could get inside their heads.
Note that the nightmare scenario most commonly invoked to promote laws concerning bathrooms is men in women’s bathrooms, rarely the opposite.
Also, modern fashion has given women a lot of freedom to wear men’s-style clothing, but men don’t get the same. People seem to expect men to look like men and some get very set off when they don’t.
There’s no need to “suspect”, it’s plain as day. Almost the entire fight about Trans is in regards to MtF.
People, and most especially women who identify as feminists, REALLY do not like the idea of Men being Women but most of them don’t care at all about Women who want to be Men.
This whole thing is an attempt to control men.
Nah, she’s said some awful stuff about trans men too, more paternalistic and insulting than actively hostile though. I’m not going to go looking for what she said though because I’d like to continue having a nice day.
I’m surprised that you’ve never noticed this before since 99.9% of the entire hullabaloo about Trans revolves around MtF. The only exception I can readily think of is minors, specifically young people seeking have biological breast tissue removed. Everything else, whether it’s sports, bathrooms, or puberty blockers is about MtF.
IRL and in the Social Media spaces, like X / FaceBook / YouTube the ones who believe and act like JK are the overwhelming majority of people.
People, and most especially women who identify as feminists, REALLY do not like the idea of Men being Women but most of them don’t care at all about Women who want to be Men.
Because Conservativism is about maintaining hierarchies. Men are (naturally) higher than women, so it’s only natural for women to aspire to be men. However, it’s against the proper order for a man to want to debase himself and lower himself on the hierarchy to become a woman. Therefore, it’s anathema.
(Oh, and also some either deep-rooted repressed homosexuality, or homophobia from fear of hitting on an attractive woman only to find out she’s a trans woman.)