- cross-posted to:
- scotland@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- scotland@feddit.uk
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.
…
Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
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Rowling quote from the article:
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.
It’s difficult to accept that someone I used to respect could say such hateful things about people like me. I’m not gonna lie, it hurts to read. What the fuck, Joanne? Is that all I am to you… just a man “performing” my idea of femaleness? Well, fuck you, then. Should I wish for you to feel the same pain you’ve inflicted on others? To be honest, judging by your “performance” in the media the past several years, I don’t think you’re resilient enough to survive it.
I am not sure she entirelly referes to you. It refers to people abusing transexuality to achieve other dreams or more dreams than just being themselves. At least this is how I understand her argumentations.
Fuck that shit. She doesn’t make any such distinction in her hate tirades. It’s very easy to find many tweets and similar quotes of her speaking about transsexual people as a whole. So yeah, she very much has spoken about OP as well. And she’s a freaking author, she doesn’t get any excuses for not knowing how to write more specifically. She knows very well what she says and who it will affect when she generalises all transsexual people. And it for damn sure isn’t some imaginary group or predators willing to go through all the hassle of being trans to prey on women but the trans community as a whole.
Can we just hold one big public figure accountable to the law? Please?
No.
Friendly reminder that Scotland’s freedom of speech laws are different from those in the US.
The freedom of one person ends where it starts limiting the freedom of another person
Unlimited freedom of speech just means that it’s possible to verbally deny a group of people a place in society either by lying about them or by just ignoring their existence - and both are limiting that person’s freedom - not just their freedom of speech.
I really don’t understand how Americans don’t seem to understand that one person’s freedom should end when it limits the freedom of another person - and if it doesn’t then it’s just the stronger/more forceful one pushing the weaker/more defensive one into a corner.
OR, and hear me out, you could just not be a total asshole? Maybe have a baseline of tolerance and respect for the people who made you a billionaire? No? Then fuck right off and accept the consequences of your hatred.
So you would like it to be enshrined in law that it is acceptable for whoever holds power to arrest people whom they believe to be assholes?
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.
No, not even a little bit. There is a difference between being an asshole and committing a hate crime.
I’m not sure there is a difference with this law.
Hate crime laws, when properly crafted and enforced, are an important component of a functional society.
I’m not sure that’s true. Freedom of speech is an important component, and sometimes that means tolerating distasteful speech.
They can act as a deterrent, but they are also a way for those materially harmed by a hate crime to get justice.
What constitutes harm though? The UK tends to include offense (or offence) as a harm.
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.
Absolutely, but being offended by a bigot probably shouldn’t be criminal without some component of advocacy for violence.
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.
Please do. She may see herself as some kind of martyr, but everyone else just sees her as an idiot.
I may not have the whole facts and information, but to me, it is beginning to sound more like a witch-hunt. Just let her have her opinions and move forward
How’s telling her that she has shitty opinion a witch hunt, but her using her fame and wealth to spread her shitty opinion way beyond what a normal random person could ever do, isn’t?
As mentioned, I do not have all the details. I have heard some of her ideas, but I don’t follow her that closely. Many famous people have terrible ideas and many fans to spread their ideas to. To me it mostly looks like people being hurt even more by JK, because they like the universe that she has created but her ideology does not fit their own.
It’s fair to feel like this, but she is just one person sharing her ideas. Nobody goes like: “JK is against trans people, so I am too”. At least they shouldn’t and at least we should expect most people don’t. Just let her have her opinions and leave it at that
As mentioned, I do not have all the details. I have heard some of her ideas, but I don’t follow her that closely.
Well then maybe, you should look a bit deeper in the topic before you propose that she’s the victim of a witch hunt? I mean it’s really not that hard, all the controversial shit is right there on her own twitter and can easily be found.
It’s fair to feel like this, but she is just one person sharing her ideas. Nobody goes like: “JK is against trans people, so I am too”. At least they shouldn’t and at least we should expect most people don’t. Just let her have her opinions and leave it at that
What? Of course people are constantly influenced by other people’s opinions. That’s how opinions form in the first place. And a world famous author with tons of followers on top of a shit ton of money to throw at groups actively advocating for legal restrictions on transsexual people obviously has a lot more power to influence people’s opinions and shitty laws than you or me in that regard. So no, she’s not just a person sharing her ideas, she’s an incredible influencual one sharing her hate in a time when the transsexual community is under active attack in several modern countries not only resulting in hurt feelings but actual people ending up dead!
Hasn’t she literally been banned from Germany for publicly denying the holocaust?
I did not find any source about her being banned from Germany, I only saw some controversy about some tweets that some people call holocaust denial.
Not only some people. The German law book is very clear about what constitutes holocaust denying and what now. Diminishing parts of the holocausts, such as claiming one group wasn’t targeted or wasn’t targeted as much is holocaust denial under that law.
Thanks for the specification. That said, what’s wrong with “some people”? It’s the second comment that jumps on that word as if it diminishes the argument. “Some” is purely a quantifier which I used because clearly not everyone is calling her like that, and this was - in fact - a niche news that a few articles spoke about.
Does the German law even applies here? Is there some formal recognition that can be used instead of relying on people’s opinion? I didn’t find anything, but if that were the case then she would be recognized by the German court/state as such.
Thanks for the specification. That said, what’s wrong with “some people”? It’s the second comment that jumps on that word as if it diminishes the argument. “Some” is purely a quantifier which I used because clearly not everyone is calling her like that, and this was - in fact - a niche news that a few articles spoke about.
For me a German law about the Holocaust just is more important than what some people say. It’s just so very vague. It reminds me a bit off Trump when he spouts some utter bullshit “some people” have said to him. That of course doesn’t mean that I think you said it in such an intention.
And no, the German law of course only applies to people in Germany. Now what would happen if Rowling would set foot in Germany would be interesting, but I don’t think even then much would happen. Nevertheless I think the German legal view on such speech IMHO is a good indication of it’s intention. After all Germany is one of the few countries who put in a serious effort in critically reflect on a very dark spot in their past. That’s something a lot of other countries could learn quite a bit.
And again, I really don’t think your choice of words were wrong in any way, my comment aimed to further elaborate on the topic and not criticise. I’m sorry if it came over in a different way.
Her opinion on trans folks is shit, but people should not go to jail for shit opinions. Broken clock and stuff.
People shouldn’t go to jail for shit opinions, I agree. That changes when their opinions become more than opinions.
That’s cryptic.
You can weaponize an opinion, that is what is getting punished.
Where you draw the line? And who is drawing it? Will you be equally happy when conservatives will use the same tools against opinions they see as dangerous?
“But what if conservatives ape what you’re doing and make shit up?” is an all-purpose argument against doing anything.
“But what if conservatives call you a terrorist?” is both a real problem that happened to people, and an obviously shite reason to say “therefore let’s not fight terrorism.”
Stop treating “but who decides?” like a table-slapping counterargument. Every law has a line. Unless you’re an outright anarchist, someone has to draw a line, somewhere, and choosing not to draw a sensible one never seems to stop assholes from drawing an unreasonable one. I mean for fuck’s sake, have you seen American states censoring school libraries for fear of acknowledging queer people? That’s not some backlash or ironic reversal. They’re just bastards. The fact they’ll latch onto whatever we’re doing, as an excuse, doesn’t make us responsible for their bastardry.
Yeah, so let’s not play their game and not give governments any tools to be able to censor anyone. In best case in some constitutional form.
Slippery slope fallacy “You’re okay with the government saying certain ingredients can’t go in food? Where does that stop? Will you be equally happy when a government you disagree with uses the same tools to dictate everything that goes in your food?”
“You’re okay with the government saying certain areas are off limits to the general public? Where do you draw the line? Will you be equally happy when a different government uses the same tools to forbid you from leaving your home?”
Is this specific step reasonable? Then it’s okay. When they try to take an unreasonable step then it is appropriate to do something about it.
My argument is more, that while I trust at least some governments with deciding on what food is safe, I don’t trust governments at all with decisions about what speech is permitted.
Who draws it? The government?!
What could go wrong? Assange and Manning would like a word with you.
I think the line is being drawn at “don’t sympathize with
terrorist groupsan opressive theocratic government” (publicly stating “at least the taliban know what a woman is”) and “don’t directly fund hate groups”.(Edited, see comment below)
Terrorist for ones are maybe freedom fighters for others - kind of sketchy line over there.
When you woke up today did you decide you were gonna make excuses for the Taliban right there and then or did it kinda just happen? Holy shit.
Taliban are obviously the only terrorist group on the planet and rebels were never before labeled as terrorists.
Which other terrorist group did that TERF sympathize with?
Lots of people just don’t know what freedom is speech actually means. Speech isn’t a crime, but crimes can be committed by speaking.
If you kill someone with a hammer, you aren’t charged with possession of hammer - you’re charged with murder. If you hire a hitman to do the killing instead, you aren’t charged with “using speech.”
When that theoretical person is arrested for “shouting fire in a crowded theatre” they aren’t actually being arrested for their speech or their words, but for a separate crime that uses speech as a mechanism.
Speech is a marvelous thing that should be protected, but freedom of speech is not freedom from the consequences of using speech to commit other crimes.
Agreed. It just becomes problematic when speech itself is redefined as crime, that is what I’m arguing against. And the the line with the consequences is not that clear either. Someone could read a book and go an kill someone. I personally think it’s a hard thing to really understand consequences of words.
It’s more complicated than that. Like saying there is a fire in a theatre when there is none, saying transgender are undercover perverts and a danger to society when it’s not supported by evidence will get people killed. Freedom of speech is great and all but when your lie and put people in danger there should be consequences.
So who is deciding what opinions are puting people in danger. US government for example thinks that whistleblowers Manning and journalist like Assange are puting people in danger.
And just for the record, this is not a theory. People HAVE been murdered.
Sick people are inspired to violence by all kind of thing, are we going to outlaw Catcher in the Rye?
There is a very incredibly stark contrast between telling a story on a page and actually saying “we should hurt people”
Kind of depends? There are books around that are rather direct in their hurtful message.
Yeah there are, but you’ll never be able to stop people from spreading literature, legal or not, so things like catcher and the rye, mice and men, mockingbird, with all of their controversies are great to have in schools to help our children grow into adults who can identify this stuff for what it actually is and not some deranged gospel.
But then there’s also a ton of other arguments to be made about mental health and all that, when it comes to violent psychos we shouldn’t get in the habit of settling with a scapegoat
Maybe you are misunderstanding me, I’m not arguing for censorship of books but against censorship op speech.
We should because it’s a shit book.
I see, since you are for outlawing books it all falls into places.
omg you’re reaching so hard over this entire comment section. just stop, it’s quite frankly embarrassing
Oh no I’m embarrassing myself in the internet, how will I ever live that one down.
Have as many opinions as you want, but if you spread shit like “we should exterminate the lesser races” and “trans people are rapists” you earn a vacation at the greybar hotel for abusing your right of free speech to infringe on other people’s rights.
The question is where the line is drawn and how to make sure the state is not abusing those powers to suppress opinions that it sees dangerous. A good example are cases when protecting the children is used as argument for more surveillance. This seems foelr me to go along the same lines.
he question is where the line is drawn
[Calling for the extermination of people based on race/ethnicity/religion/gender/disability]
[Discrimination based on race/ethnicity/religion/gender/disability]
|||||||||| THE LINE ||||||||||
.
.
[Literally 1984]
Most sane countries don’t have a lot trouble with this.
Calling for extermination, I would agree on. Since it’s more than an opinion it’s a call to action.
Most sane countries don’t have a lot trouble with this.
I’m really curious for examples.
Sometimes the question of “Where do we draw the line” is an important, valid question that must be considered. Sometimes, the answer to that question can also be “I don’t know precisely, but this is damn well over it.”
I’m not saying that hack writer is necessarily to that stage, but we absolutely should not allow “But where do you draw the line” to turn into “Everything is permitted because what about splitting hairs.”
Than I will rephrase the question. Who should draw the line and do you trust people in power to draw it in a fair way? What if conservatives are holding that power against opinions they think are dangerous?
I’m not totally familiar with how the Scottish legal system works, but wouldn’t the line be drawn by a jury of peers, and not necessarily the people in power?
Good question. But than again - not sure you want to be judged on sensitive topic by a group of peers, I’m not a huge fan of that concept to be honest.
She grossly misinterprets what the law is meant to achieve. It’s not for somebody who dead names a trans person or calls a trans woman he or him. It’s when someone Tweets out “Who will rid me of this troublesome trans person?” and then their one or more of their followers goes out and beats or murders that person.
You should maybe read the law.
Part 2 Section 3, 32: […] It provides that it is an offence for a person to behave in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner, or communicate threatening, abusive or insulting material to another person, with either the intention 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 where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group.
It’s talking about likely consequence not after a crime has been committed. Also:
Part 2 Section 5, 47: Section 5(1) creates an offence of possession of racially inflammatory material. It provides that it is an offence for a person to have in their possession threatening, abusive or insulting material with a view to communicating the material to another person, with either the intention 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 where it is likely that, if the material were communicated, hatred will be stirred up against such a group.
Which makes possession of inflammatory material an offence. Which is rather murky on it’s own, but even more so in digital age.
Later it quite literally defines on which terms it’s permissive to discuss sexual orientation or religion.
To be fair, maybe I missed something so feel free to correct me:
I was using hyperbole but the intention is the same. If you use a public platform to intentionally cause harm to another person by way of their race, nationality, sexual identity, or other specificity then you have committed a crime.
What you clearly missed was the point of the law. Hate speech isn’t about saying what you want about another person, it’s about using your speech to directly or indirectly harm another person or group of people.
I was using hyperbole but the intention is the same.
Sorry I’m bad at reading facial expression over the internet. My mistake.
What you clearly missed was the point of the law.
I literally quoted the law: “where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group.”
That goes beyond what you claim. While even a possession of such speech would be an offence.
It’s becoming harder and harder to be a Harry Potter fan nowaday.
I don’t really understand what it is about X Formerly Known as Twitter that turns previously respectable people into, well, this.
Everybody should take a break from social media once in a while, it’s better for your health.
I don’t like Harry Potter to begin with, but I don’t really have a huge problem separating the artist from the art if the only thing they did was be hateful.
Roald Dahl was a major antisemite, but I still think he wrote great children’s books and suspense/horror stories. H. P. Lovecraft was bigoted about pretty much anyone who wasn’t a white man. Again, a really good writer.
Where is becomes hard to separate them is when they actually do something about their disgusting ideas. Roman Polanski and Woody Allen are pedophiles. I will never watch either of their movies. And I think both have made very good movies. I feel that I was wrong to watch the ones I did.
So yeah, Rowling is an utterly contemptible piece of shit, but if you like Harry Potter, it’s okay.
There were always questionable elements from the books, like the depictions of goblins and elves. But knowing what we know now, these elements cannot be brushed off any more.
The Elves were directly based off of “Brownies”
It’s also highly unusual that elves were depicted this way, considering most fantasy stories hold them in high regard as being magical beings seeing themselves above humanity for reasons that are normally geniunely sound (Better moral compass, natural magical talents… Whereas in Harry Potter it’s the exact opposite, humanity seems to be the highest creature and Elves feel like to squabble before them…
There’s no way the “Brownie” similarity is unintentional
So what’s a Brownie? Well it was a way of explaining slaves to young children back in those days, to brush off the casual cruelty by lying to kids. Essentially the myth of the “Brownie” was to re contextualize the suffering of the black slave as a magical event, a beautiful mysterious thing to be observed not with horror, but with wonder. A big part of the myth claimed that you can’t give a Brownie anything nice like proper clothing, or else this “breaks the contract between Man and Fae” and they run back into the woods never to be seen again.
“No it’s okay children, they’re magical forest people called Brownies! And they LIKE doing that work for us! Oh and we can’t give them anything nice, or they’ll disappear forever! And you wouldn’t want that to happen! No no, really, they’re faeries, and they like being whipped like that!”
Feeling disgusted? Good, that sickness in your stomach is proof that you’re a better person than JK Rowling.
tl;dr Harry Potter elves are a resurrection of Pro-Slavery Propaganda used to indoctrinate children into thinking it’s okay to treat people like shit. They had to GASLIGHT LITERAL CHILDREN into thinking that black people were magical elves, in order to stop them from feeling bad about slavery… and JK decided to bring that back for her kid’s book.
As much fun as Hogwarts Legacy is, I hope she rots in hell and then is reborn as a transgender woman to learn basic empathy.
most fantasy stories hold them in high regard as being magical beings seeing themselves above humanity for reasons that are normally geniunely sound (Better moral compass, natural magical talents…
Oh sweet summer child… You better not know about elves in folklore…
And even if we only look at Tolkin’s Elves, who basically are the base of the whole modern conception of them, they certainly aren’t better as a general rule. Some of them are really shitty fucks.
