The “Harry Potter” author slammed a newly enacted hate-crime law in Scotland in a series of posts on X in which she referred to transgender women as men.
J.K. Rowling shared a social media thread on Monday, the day a new Scottish hate-crime law took effect, that misgendered several transgender women and appeared to imply trans women have a penchant for sexual predation. On Tuesday, Scottish police announced they would not be investigating the “Harry Potter” author’s remarks as a crime, as some of Rowling’s critics had called for.
“We have received complaints in relation to the social media post,” a spokesperson for Police Scotland said in a statement. “The comments are not assessed to be criminal and no further action will be taken.”
Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act criminalizes “stirring up hatred” against people based on their race, religion, disability, sexuality or gender identity.
I strongly disagree. some opinions are literally harmful to express. the narrative that trans women are dangerous, predators, or not really their gender, is hate speech. it is statistically linked to increased violence against trans people, especially when coming from someone with a huge platform. it’s unclear whether Rowling actively intends to cause harm, but she has been associating with literal Nazis lately. we should respect each other’s opinions, sure, but when people hold exclusionary opinions, we have to decide whether their right to spout hatred is more important than trans people’s right to safety, comfort, and wellbeing. I choose the wellbeing of the trans community over Rowling’s right to bigotry.
“we have to decide whether their right to spout hatred is more important than trans people’s right to safety, comfort, and wellbeing.”
In no uncertain terms, it is imperative that we do not allow any governing body to decide what we can and can not say. What is and isn’t dangerous, what is and isn’t hate, can not and should not be legislated, or we will be robbed of our voices lest dissent be considered dangerous, or hatred. It won’t be long until calling the police “pig” is a hate crime and criticizing your leaders sedition.
Shun them, malign them, discredit, and mock them publicly, but I can never see the good in giving the government the ability to punish someone for their speech, no matter how vehemently it goes against modern paradigm.
so you suggest completely deregulating hate speech, then? how about direct incitement of violence? how about slander and defamation?
there are many restrictions on “freedom of speech” already, and it’s not like anyone is complaining that people calling in bomb threats shouldn’t get arrested. there NEED to be restrictions on speech. imagine if advertisers could just lie with no repercussions, or if you could state your intent to kill someone and it would be illegal to arrest you until you actually do it.
calling a policeman a pig is not hate speech. it is hateful, but there’s a big difference between calling a cop a pig and misgendering or using slurs against trans people.
minority groups are especially vulnerable to hate speech and there are already laws in place to protect them from certain kinds of speech. this is especially true with trans people, as we have seen their suicide rate linked very clearly with the presence of hate and absence of support.
we can say “the repercussions must only be social” but that leaves it up to the people to enforce it. what about minorities living surrounded by people who don’t support them? are they supposed to just grin and bear it? for a trans person, this could easily and quickly drive them to suicide.
I will never advocate that simple (especially accidental) misgendering should be grounds for arresting somebody. but these acts, when done intentionally, actively spread hate, misinformation, and tangible harm which touches the lives of trans people. this is why we must choose which is more important: the lives and safety of these trans people, or the comfort and “freedom” of people who want to see them eradicated. your freedom ends where it would violate another person’s freedom or basic rights.
this choice has been made on many other matters, which I touched on before. we have repeatedly found that certain kinds of speech are harmful enough to warrant legal repercussions. refusing to regulate this kind of hate speech just takes the side of the oppressor; it means trans people have no recourse and it becomes easy to spread massive misinformation campaigns (as Republicans are currently doing) which directly leads to people dying (dozens of anti trans laws have been passed in dozens of states, and those states have extremely high trans suicide rates).
why do we need to respect the opinion of someone whose opinion is “trans people should die or go to jail”?
“this is why we must choose which is more important: the lives and safety of these trans people, or the comfort and “freedom” of people who want to see them eradicated”
This is a strawman and a false dichotomy. Legislation restricting speech is overreaching and dangerous to a free society. I, and many others, do not trust the government with that kind of power. Today, it’s trans people, tomorrow it’s soldiers and police and politicians suddenly beyond critique, on pain of government punishment. Anyone can become a “protected class” when it’s convenient to the ones writing the rules.
Yes, it should be social only. If that society sees the speech as unacceptable, they’ll react accordingly. If not, they won’t. Society is capable of handling itself, even if it sometimes makes choices we don’t personally agree with.
There is no scenario where giving the government further power into the lives of citizens a good idea. Every time we’ve tried that, things have only gotten worse. The PATRIOT ACT all but demolished the 4th amendment. Something like this would be similar for the 1st.