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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, not even a little bit. There is a difference between being an asshole and committing a hate crime. Hate crime laws, when properly crafted and enforced, are an important component of a functional society. They can act as a deterrent, but they are also a way for those materially harmed by a hate crime to get justice. Free speech is never a universal right, anywhere in the world. There are always legitimate restrictions to ensure the public’s overall health and safety.
What is the difference?
I’m not sure there is a difference with this law.
I’m not sure that’s true. Freedom of speech is an important component, and sometimes that means tolerating distasteful speech.
What constitutes harm though? The UK tends to include offense (or offence) as a harm.
Absolutely, but being offended by a bigot probably shouldn’t be criminal without some component of advocacy for violence.
We don’t have to tolerate the intolerant, they refuse to abide by the mutual contract of tolerance so they don’t deserve the protections of a tolerant society.
JKR isn’t just doing a little bit of free speech she is a billionaire advocating for hate on a massive platform and donating to hate groups, she has influence and power. She is absolutely advocating for the restriction on trans peoples rights, that is violence. Especially in a time when anti trans hate is on the rise we should be even more skeptical of claims of free speech, right now across the world hate crimes against trans people are going up and our rights are being stripped away.
Arguments about free speech are just a way to ignore the issue and do nothing as transphobia continues to thrive and spread. Stop defending hate.
Until the intolerance of the intolerant is applied to not tolerate you… You see hate crime laws being used to defend religions from criticism for example.
Oh my what ever might that be like, having to deal with intolerance. I never have to deal with that nope. Nope it’s definitely not a daily occurrence for pretty much all trans people.
But the transphobes get to advocate for my erasure and that’s just free speech… yep makes sense… totally fair and balanced
What? I think you missed what I was saying. For example they could argue criticism of their religion is itself intolerant and should therefore be illegal.
So… we should just let bigots get their way and let them continue to successfully advocate for the rights of trans people and other minorities to be stripped away because they might also try to do a religious theocracy?
That is what freedom of speech is. I really don’t like what a lot of people say, and I think a lot of it is harmful
Well I think that’s a cop out to do nothing and act moral while letting other people get hurt and suffer.
Freedoms should only go so far as to not encroach on other people’s freedoms, hate speech goes too far, advocating people’s right to healthcare to be stripped away is too far, advocating we be classified as sex offenders just by existing is too far.
I don’t care what your abstract notion about free speech is, it’s just a fanciful notion that has never actually been realized and doesn’t work in practice. Meanwhile real people are getting hurt now and you choose to defend the speech of those advocating that violence. It’s wrong.
No, arguments about free speech recognize that there is no more important right that a free society can have. If a group can dictate that the language that they find distasteful is criminal, then so can any other group.
Without protections for free speech, what happens when an authoritarian like Trump determines that support for trans people is actually misogyny, or that support for POC is racist against white people and then criminalizes that speech? These are arguments they already make.
You’re talking about prior restraint which, at least in the US, has always been harshly scrutinized. As it should be. A line needs to be drawn, but promoting violence should be that line, not merely that which is distasteful.
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And I think you’re naive, and terrible at grammar (it’s “you’re” not “your”). Am I pro-murder too because I don’t like the death penalty either? I know that you have a tiny inept brain, but try to imagine that I could dislike something and not want to criminalize it.
Oh look, they’re already following the obvious playbook. If you make speech criminal it’s not going to be used against the people you want it used against.
I deleted it like 2 seconds after I posted it because I was angry, but what ever quote it I guess.
I am tired of people like you standing up for hate speech while I just have to stand by and watch my rights gets stripped. JKR is advocating hate and violence and you just sit there and defend it. Leave me alone you are not an ally of mine and you never will be.
I’m sorry that I can advocate for free speech protections and believe that trans rights are human rights all at the same time and you can’t.
It’s like the cases the ACLU would take on, defending the free speech rights of reprehensible people, because the only way they can be sure that they can say whatever they want, is to be sure that bigots can do the same. It’s the only way it works.
The defense of hate speech puts people in danger, you are not an ally.