JK Rowling has taken to social media to criticise Scotland’s new hate crime law, inviting the police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence. The author referred to several transgender women as men in her posts, including convicted prisoners, trans activists, and other public figures. Rowling has been a long-time critic of some trans activism. The new Hate Crime and Public Order Act 2021 creates a new crime that relates to stirring up hatred regarding age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or being intersex.
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a “rising tide of hatred.” However, the law does not protect women as a group from hatred. The Scottish government is expected to include this later in a separate misogyny law. Rowling argued that “freedom of speech and belief” was at an end if the accurate description of biological sex was outlawed. She added that “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.”
The maximum penalty under the new act in Scotland is a jail sentence of seven years. A person commits an offence if they communicate material or behave in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive with the intention of stirring up hatred based on protected characteristics. In Scotland, the new act also consolidates existing laws on crimes that are aggravated by prejudice towards a protected characteristic.
A group of around 200 protesters gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on the morning the new law came into effect. The Scottish government argued that the Hate Crime Act would provide protection from hate and prejudice without stifling individual expression. Humza Yousaf said that the law was designed to deal with what he called a “rising tide of hatred” in society. He reassured critics of the act by saying that “Unless your behaviour is threatening or abusive and intends to stir up hatred, then you have nothing to worry about in terms of the new offences being created.
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