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.
But will she continue bitching about it like Jordan Peterson still does about the law in Canada that he didn’t get arrested for supposedly violating?
The laws don’t apply to rich people
Notice how they said
Not assessed to be criminal
And not
Assesed to be not criminal
Scottish Cops are still Cops I guess
This TERF needs to just accept that she’s not relevant anymore. She is just a washed up, miserable person and not even her bottomless wallet can bring her happiness.
You say this yet people keep throwing money at her. Studios and HP fans alike.
She is still unfortunately relevant to a huge swath of people
That’s why I sail the seven sees, especially if it’s about content she might get royalties from.
But also, there hasn’t been anything good since the first fantastic beasts movie…
Also also, I made harry potter themed fuck JK pins, so a few lgbtq friends of mine could still wear their hp merch without endorsing her.
So the new law is not enforce? or is it only for the plebs?
This is a good thing, the law is draconian. Thatcher would have loved it.
Oh I agree it’s a shit law, but if you are going to have shit laws make sure they apply evenly. I also have a personal vendetta against JKR. HP was just crappy Stsr Wars fanfic, and she is a trashcan of a human being.
Thatcher hated trans people and Rowling is a Holocaust denier. what do we gain by allowing her to continue spewing hateful rhetoric to a massive audience?
We have far too much to lose by allowing the government to dictate what people can and can not say.
so you’d rather lose the trans people to violence or suicide than regulate hate speech against them?
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
I don’t wish anyone harm, but I will always choose the right to speak freely over what a governing body considers “safe”.
Now have a poor person say the exact same shit and report that
She should really check on the other laws to see if they’ll be enforced, too.
This is literally not news. It’s literally not something happening.
On a side note, what is with all those fake, AI generated, car ads down at the bottom?
Crazy how many people in here agree that you should be punished by the government for things you say
She looks like Putin in a wig and seems to share his views too.
Coincidence?
I’ve never seen them in the same room together, just saying.
“I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
This whole law is absurd and draconian.
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.
Sorry but is free speech dead or something? If this constitutes a crime then I have no hope for the human race anymore!
If you are popular person you must keep in mind that your words could ruin someone’s life. She cherry picks people here that “changed” gender to avoid man prison but in reality those are outliers. In the process, she is putting negative light on a whole group of people. This is similar to what politicians do to manipulate groups of people for votes
Does the new law account for how famous one is?
Based on your comment, this is doing the exact same thing that you are blaming her of: Enforcing a law on everyone when it should apply to a minority of people who have a massive following
I am not familiar with law there, I just commented based on common logic and my human decency expectations. Imo, all hate should be equally punished, but non public hate will obviously be harder to pinpoint
This is all a reaction to a new law in Scotland, as described in the actual post above:
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.
It is a vague definition, but people have been using it to go after JK Rowling for her stance on transgender people . I am not taking sides and not saying that her opinions are right, but I am just saying that people should be allowed to have and state their own opinion. It is the individuals responsibility to evaluate that opinion, and decide for or against it, not any law. Also a law should apply to everyone and not only to people who have a massive followage.
The same law prohibits age hatred. If it was to be enforced like people here want it to, you’d get penalised for calling someone a boomer. Or maybe calling someone disabled instead of a person with a disabillty
Sure its wrong but you can’t go around regulating people like that
Sure thing, boomer. Go take your meds before you turn to dust.
Exactly! You should be allowed to call me a boomer without fearing that id call the police on you.
So what you’re saying is that it’s okay for me to call you a braindead moron-ass motherfucker with your own head lodged up your wide and prolapsed asshole destroyed by years of sitting on rightwing dick?
I mean…yeah. you get to express your opinion. He gets to express his.
I don’t agree with JK, but I’ll defend her right to say it. We stop what she is saying by being more compelling, not by prosecuting her for saying it.
That’s the kind of moronic thinking that led to the current wave of fascism to begin with.
Are you saying you should be fined for it? Or just that you should be fined only if you have over X followers?
I’m saying you’re an idiot for having that opinion
This is exactly how it should be! You shouldn’t be able to call the police on me for having it though or on anyone else for having an opinion that you don’t agree with. This is the main topic of this discussion.
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I’m sorry you had a bad apple around you when growing up, but please do not think every trans person is like that. A lot just want to live their lives and wear what they think looks good on them. They may want to appear feminine and have thoughts that just don’t seem very masculine, what are they supposed to do in your opinion? They don’t want to be laughed at for having to wear a lumberjack shirt while they’re freaking out about Taylor Swift (cliche girly example) Nobody is taking your right to food away just because you didn’t suffer through famine like a lot of poor people either. You’re rightfully mad about male privilege in society, while insisting on your own privilege of being born female.
You have my sympathy, but it sounds like you had a super fucked up childhood and you’re now externalizing that trauma onto an unrelated group of people.
Your uncle was a sexual predator, not a trans woman. Trans people are not usually gender fluid so they don’t switch back and forth like your uncle and they certainly don’t pretend to be a real relative to bully that person’s children!?
Honestly it sounds like your uncle had serious issue with your mother, probably stemming from his own childhood abuse. Abusers are often abused. You don’t mention them, but I’d bet your mothers parents were not great either.
I am truly sorry for what happened to you growing up. That’s really fucked and no one deserves that.
I would caution that you are using this experience to shape the definition of all transgender people in your mind. There’s all types of people, good and bad, this is the same with transgender people. This is assuming the person you described is even transgender, which they may not be.
I’d point out that all of the struggles that you face as a biologically born woman, aren’t erased because somebody else has joined your gender. There are plenty of cis women who don’t experience childbirth, periods, ovarian cysts, fibroids, etc… they’re still women. Your struggles in these areas don’t gatekeep other people from experiencing womanhood. If a country achieves true gender equality, are the cis female population of that country no longer able to call themselves women because they didn’t experience discrimination growing up?
All the things you’ve mentioned aren’t things that define womanhood. They define individual women’s struggles. Just because there are members of the gender that have never experienced this, does nothing to undermine these struggles. Feminism exists to help ameliorate the various struggles that affect women disproportionately. That’s not being threatened here. If anything it’s bringing more attention to it.
A person rejecting the identity of their biology and often their whole social life to be identified as another gender is not done as a mockery. Maybe this did happen in your case. But I assure you that the majority of transgender people want to celebrate the best parts of the gender they are transitioning into and be another person to stand up for them and fight for their equality.
The struggles women are subjected to are brutal. Don’t reject an ally who wants to join you.
