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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Not a reduction at all. The beginning of the Holocaust was when the Nazis destroyed the Institute for Sexual Research and burned all the books. I used Jews as an example rather than that because people were making the same “he’s keeping Germany safe” argument about Hitler persecuting the Jews that the person above is making about “they’re keeping women safe.” And I would not be at all surprised if they made the “they’re keeping women safe” argument about persecuting trans people then too.

    It is encouraging genocide while defending someone who denied the Holocaust.

    Why you think that is a reduction, I don’t know. It seems like a pretty close 1:1 comparison with Germany in 1933 to me.

    Hitler didn’t start the death camps the second he came to power. You know that, right?

    • sailingbythelee@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Well, comparing JK Rowling to Hitler and her fear of tran women to the Holocaust might be just a wee bit of exaggeration, eh? The purpose of citing Godwin’s Law is to remind people to step back and ask whether the person being discussed is actually similar in magnitude to Hitler and the Nazis.