If you follow me on Twitter, you know protecting female sports and places has become a huge fight for me. Shoot, protecting the definition of female is a big deal.
I have a list on Twitter called #SaveWomensSports filled with brave females who speak out against actual misogyny and sexism.
We have to pay attention to this subject around the world.
Like today. Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 went into effect today. Notice a word missing from the protected classes that could get you arrested for “stirring up hatred.” A noticeable exclusion:
(a) age,(b) disability,(c) race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins,(d) religion or, in the case of a social or cultural group, perceived religious affiliation,(e) sexual orientation,(f) transgender identity,(g) variations in sex characteristics. [intersex]
Sex. The bill does not include sex as a stand-alone protected class. The bill does not preserve biological males and females.
But females are most at risk because 99% of the time, we only hear about trans women. We don’t hear about trans men!
The chapter describing “stirring up hatred” is as vague as you would imagine. Notice there are no exceptions to how a person communicates supposed hatred:
(1) A person commits an offence if–(a) the person–(i) behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or(ii) communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, and(b) either–(i) in doing so, the person intends to stir up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by reference to race, colour,nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origins, or(ii) a reasonable person would consider the behaviour or the communication of the material to be likely to result in hatred being stirred up against such a group.(2) A person commits an offence if–(a)the person—(i)behaves in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, or(ii)communicates to another person material that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive, and”Behaviour of any kind.” “A single act.” “A course of conduct.” You seriously face up to seven years for (emphasis mine):(a) displaying, publishing or distributing the material,(b) giving, sending, showing or playing the material to another person,(c) making the material available to another person in any other way.
No exceptions.
I DESPISE the phrase “reasonable person” because it is entirely left up to interpretation, just like it would be if you just said person or people.
Women in Scotland point out that they are a “reasonable person.”
Scotland included a “freedom of expression” part of the bill, which means crap considering the vagueness of the bill.
J.K. Rowling has remained at the forefront of this fight for years. She has dared Scottish police to arrest her when she comes home. She has a great April 1 thread about the law.
This last tweet by Rowling is superb. It’s long, but I’ll post the whole thing:
In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of ‘woman’ to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it.#ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland
#FactIsNotACrime
#TruthIsNotACrime
#FactIsNotHate
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