U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has jumped to defend J.K. Rowling, who is once again using her one wild and precious life to post obsessively about transgender women instead of doing literally anything else with her hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Harry Potter author took to X, formerly Twitter, on April 1 to share her thoughts on Scotland’s new Hate Crime Act, which went into effect the same day. The law criminalizes “stirring up hatred” related to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, trans identity, or being intersex, as the BBC reported. “Stirring up hatred” is further defined as communicating or behaving in a way “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive” against a protected group. The offense is punishable by imprisonment of up to seven years, a fine, or both.
In response to the legislation, Rowling posted a long thread naming several prominent trans women in the U.K., including Mridul Wadhwa, the CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre, and activist Munroe Bergdorf. Since it was April Fool’s day, Rowling decided to commemorate it by sarcastically affirming the womanhood of all the people she named in her thread. In the same breath that she said that a convicted child predator was “rightly sent to a women’s prison,” she also called out a number of trans women making anodyne comments about inclusion, seemingly implying that trans identity is inherently predatory.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43478925
This man trained his girlfriend's dog to give a Nazi salute to some offensive phrases as a joke. Shared it with a few friends on social media.
It was then leaked and the offensive joke that went viral and got 3 million views on YouTube.
Then because of the criminal case for hate speech the EDL (English Defence League) were able to bandwagon on the news cycle and spread some real hate.
So the law meant to prevent hate speech instead platformed a hate group and spread the original joke further to the point where it probably did cause offence. Because if you don't know the person making the joke, you don't know what they intend.
All because a Scottish judge was allowed and chose to ignore all context around the actual content.
It is a bad law.
I'm not one of the "can't say anything these days" crowd, and in general I think there can be limitations on speech that have a positive affect on society.
But the law in Scotland specifically is absolutely trash in stating absolutes about speech when speech is always subjective and always surrounded by context.
That case is bullshit, yes. But still, if you had Rowling's wealth and influence and wanted to enact policy change, would this be your approach?
If I had her wealth no one would ever see or hear from me again.
Not everything I disagree with has to be illegal.
Especially when there are already consequences.
Rowling will face social consequences for her speech. It doesn't have to be illegal.
Problems with the law usually affect those who do things people or governments don't like. Not with conforming behaviour.
Clamping down on one freedom to protect another is ultimately harmful.
Usually it's "to protect the children" which has obviously had a negative effect on the trans community in several countries.
In this case it's "to protect minorities" and the actual law will punish jokes at the expense of bigots as much as bigotry.
It's unlikely to be prosecuted but quoting Rowling's hate speech to draw attention to it in a negative light is just as illegal as saying it in the first place. The law is once again only helping to turn her hate into a news story where she gets cast as the victim rather than the perpetrator.
That case is ridiculous, but that's what the law was like before this new bill. The new bill makes it even less well defined