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.
… so arrest her?
Why are some people so determined to be pieces of shit?
You don’t get rich being nice.
Even if you did (like you won the big lottery or something). Being rich turns people into assholes too. Your ego inflates massively.
Theres actually a body of research here, abd its so much fucking worse. Researcher I remember is named piff, look some up; its fucking wild.
Because its the only way they know how to relate to others or have any concept of themselves, being wealthy makes you a vicious sadistic piece if shit¹, and picking on the weak gives a slight emotional high, especially if you’ve got an audience.
¹not just humans; all apes suck like this.
She likes the attention. She had it once. But she blew her load and now there’s no more creativity. So she gets it in other ways.
What are you going to do about it?
Well…nothing, lol.
And now we know why they think they can get away with it
What exactly do you expect a random Lemmy poster to do about J. K. Rowling?
Pirating her products instead buying them would be a start and in brand.
Why are you assuming the person you were criticizing for letting her get away with this has ever bought a single one of her books or any other Harry Potter products? I haven’t. It doesn’t interest me. Am I letting her get away with it? Is the only way to not let her get away with it to pirate her books that I wasn’t planning to read in the first place?
I hear piracy is theft so we can pirate her books a billion times and watch her go bankrupt
Guess you need to take the next step and cyberbully her supporters then
I’m neither Scottish, nor Brittish, nor would I buy her shit anyway. Short of taking a trip to the UK just to punch her face, what else is there to do?
Offer free drinks to anyone who does.
I’m not from Ireland or the UK, not a consumer for her products, and don’t know her personally. What do you propose I do about her shitty behavior?
Pirate her works?
Why bother with it at all? Its so overrated.
The rich aren’t people, dear.
Hate is the keyword here, stating something factual is fine but as we all know someone somewhere will misuse this act if they are butthurt enough
Who knewa serial plagiarist would be a shit person
I’m glad that Harry Potter wasn’t my favourite series growing up, knowing how bad of a person she is. With that said, it’s still possible to separate the art from the artist, so it’s okay either way but personally I just feel better knowing it wasn’t my number one favourite series growing up.
Some people here really breaking their backs with the freeze peach of haring trans.
I’m utterly befuddled by this woman; somehow she hates the idea of trans women so much that she’s now closely allied with Posie Parker, a woman who hates women, hates suffrage, has advocated for the removal of women’s rights for years, and shares closely held opinions from just right of Goebbels.
Somehow Jo has become so utterly single-minded, she’s paired with the antithesis of all the other things she believes in (and still claims to believe as justification of her anti-trans nonsense).
Tbh, it’s a badly thought out “law” that seems to be just a case of letting the police decide whether to act on it or not, letting them deal with things based on their own prejudices (e.g. weed is illegal in the UK, but if you were a racist copper you could arrest some black youths for smoking it and not some white kids). It’s cowardly politics, and avoids actually defining anything or drawing any lines in the sand.
Also, it’s not a crime to be a moron on Twitter. One might argue it’s where they belong.
So…. They’re going to arrest her, right?
I have never and will never give her a dime. My kid is banned. We will never stream 1 second or flip 1 page.
I look forward to the pending arrest video, where she is suddenly all apologetic and saying sorry, and not understanding why they won’t let her go because she just said sorry to them.
I’m sorry, I thought this was America.
I’m sorry, I thought this was
AmericaScotland
I love that episode.
It’s not a crime to be an insufferable piece of shit. Usually. If they make an exception for her, okay then.
It truly makes me think most “martyrs” in history must have been insufferable pieces of shit, as well.
Because it’s only these people who want to make a “martyr” of themselves, endlessly playing the fucking victim while having enough money to make Solomon blush.
No, but it seems like “stirring up hate” is a crime. And, as a public figure who is publicly hateful, she potentially fits that description
Yep, there really needs to be the distinction between private remarks and public instigation in free speech law.
Otherwise you’re not protecting anything except the right of the loudest to monopolize the airwaves via intimidation of dissent and “the other”
It’s not freedom of speech unless everyone feels safe using it, be it from fear of retaliation by the state, or by the tyranny of cousins.
It’s a delicate balancing act, but there is a sliding scale of speech acts, from the harmless, to bigoted, to hate speech, to incitement of violence.
There’s not universal agreement on where to place the line between protected speech and public instigation, but her public comments have been drifting ever closer to that line, especially with her most recent bout of denying Nazi crimes.
Not chilling protected speech is important, but so is enforcement against those who have crossed the line. Countries with stricter laws are generally those who have learned this the hard way.
denying Nazi crimes.
Jfc, when did she start doing that?
Someone else posted the link, but a few weeks ago she described the idea that Nazis targeted research and healthcare information on Trans patients as “a fever dream”, despite the Nazi raids on Magnus Hirschfield’s Institute are a well-documented part of their crimes.
She claimed she was describing something other than the screenshot she quoted after people repeatedly pointed out how wrong she was, but it’s still a troubling escalation in her rhetoric.
No, but it seems like “stirring up hate” is a crime. And, as a public figure who is publicly hateful, she potentially fits that description
According to the article the law doesn’t apply in a general sense.
It appears its written (along with another law) to only apply to an aggressor’s interaction with a specific person. So the law wouldn’t apply to Rowling’s comments from twitter about the group in general. No specifically named person is targeted.
Also, something I just learned from this about Rowling’s Transphobia that was strange to me. She doesn’t appear to have any problem with FtM, but only problems with MtF. I have never run across someone who has such specific bigotry in this case.
I have never run across someone who has such specific bigotry in this case.
I’m surprised that you’ve never noticed this before since 99.9% of the entire hullabaloo about Trans revolves around MtF. The only exception I can readily think of is minors, specifically young people seeking have biological breast tissue removed. Everything else, whether it’s sports, bathrooms, or puberty blockers is about MtF.
IRL and in the Social Media spaces, like X / FaceBook / YouTube the ones who believe and act like JK are the overwhelming majority of people.
People, and most especially women who identify as feminists, REALLY do not like the idea of Men being Women but most of them don’t care at all about Women who want to be Men.
Because Conservativism is about maintaining hierarchies. Men are (naturally) higher than women, so it’s only natural for women to aspire to be men. However, it’s against the proper order for a man to want to debase himself and lower himself on the hierarchy to become a woman. Therefore, it’s anathema.
(Oh, and also some either deep-rooted repressed homosexuality, or homophobia from fear of hitting on an attractive woman only to find out she’s a trans woman.)
Nah, she’s said some awful stuff about trans men too, more paternalistic and insulting than actively hostile though. I’m not going to go looking for what she said though because I’d like to continue having a nice day.
@partial_accumen I would suspect that a lot of transphobes are more hostile to MtF than FtM, if you could get inside their heads.
Note that the nightmare scenario most commonly invoked to promote laws concerning bathrooms is men in women’s bathrooms, rarely the opposite.
Also, modern fashion has given women a lot of freedom to wear men’s-style clothing, but men don’t get the same. People seem to expect men to look like men and some get very set off when they don’t.
I would suspect that a lot of transphobes are more hostile to MtF than FtM
There’s no need to “suspect”, it’s plain as day. Almost the entire fight about Trans is in regards to MtF.
People, and most especially women who identify as feminists, REALLY do not like the idea of Men being Women but most of them don’t care at all about Women who want to be Men.
This whole thing is an attempt to control men.
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.
What is the difference?
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.
We don’t have to tolerate the intolerant, they refuse to abide by the mutual contract of tolerance so they don’t deserve the protections of a tolerant society.
JKR isn’t just doing a little bit of free speech she is a billionaire advocating for hate on a massive platform and donating to hate groups, she has influence and power. She is absolutely advocating for the restriction on trans peoples rights, that is violence. Especially in a time when anti trans hate is on the rise we should be even more skeptical of claims of free speech, right now across the world hate crimes against trans people are going up and our rights are being stripped away.
Arguments about free speech are just a way to ignore the issue and do nothing as transphobia continues to thrive and spread. Stop defending hate.
Until the intolerance of the intolerant is applied to not tolerate you… You see hate crime laws being used to defend religions from criticism for example.
Oh my what ever might that be like, having to deal with intolerance. I never have to deal with that nope. Nope it’s definitely not a daily occurrence for pretty much all trans people.
But the transphobes get to advocate for my erasure and that’s just free speech… yep makes sense… totally fair and balanced
What? I think you missed what I was saying. For example they could argue criticism of their religion is itself intolerant and should therefore be illegal.
Arguments about free speech are just a way to ignore the issue and do nothing as transphobia continues to thrive and spread.
No, arguments about free speech recognize that there is no more important right that a free society can have. If a group can dictate that the language that they find distasteful is criminal, then so can any other group.
Without protections for free speech, what happens when an authoritarian like Trump determines that support for trans people is actually misogyny, or that support for POC is racist against white people and then criminalizes that speech? These are arguments they already make.
You’re talking about prior restraint which, at least in the US, has always been harshly scrutinized. As it should be. A line needs to be drawn, but promoting violence should be that line, not merely that which is distasteful.
That’s already the law. Look at Florida.
You know it doesn’t work that way but spout nonsense anyway.
It seems billionaires have really wacked out midlife crises. Instead of buying expensive cars and cheating on their partners, they come out as terfy nazis, build hate platforms, and crash companies. I mean to be fair, at this point the sample size is only two, JKKK Rowling and Musk, but it’s still surprising that it’d happen twice.
You can add Markus Persson to that sample group
I think a factor with some of them, probably both the ones you mentioned, is that they can’t handle criticism. So when they get any push back they double down. Then they get drawn into conservative nonsense that reinforces their beliefs. Then it’s a downward spiral as they get radicalized far beyond their original positions.
To be fair, you just described my mother to a tee. She’s a narcissist and has managed to alienate everyone from her life.
Bill Gates started a charity.
Steve Jobs killed himself because he thought he knew better than his doctors. Well, that’s wacked out too, but at least it’s not being a Nazi…
Steve Jobs killed himself because he thought he knew better than his doctors. Well, that’s wacked out too, but at least it’s not being a Nazi…
Steve Jobs was always a piece of shit, and he had that diet well before he got cancer. But yeah the fact he continued to double down in the face of death shows how much of a narcissist he was.
These guys need to get on John McAfee’s level
John McAfee’s poop hammock is perhaps the best story about him.
For the uninitiated:
Have you seen the (censored) GoPro footage he released?
Oh you son of a…
John McCracked
McAfee is not worth cracking
At last this guy was entertaining, not only disgusting like these modern “billionaires”. Pff.
That dude’s videos are extraordinary.
Bill gates didn’t start the charity as a midlife crisis.
It’s a tax dodge and a lot of other ways of protecting his money while also doing a little reputation washing/ morality banking
It’s a tax dodge
You don’t understand how taxes work.
Wasn’t he 45 when he started the charity? That sounds like a perfect candidate to be a midlife crisis, haha
Just because it was midlife doesn’t mean it’s a crisis.
He started the charity as a shelter for his obscene wealth. That is all.
I’m not obscenely wealthy, so I don’t have the experience…but it seems plausible that a billionaire midlife crisis could be “Where am I going to put this ridiculous amount of money that I’ve earned through less-than-ethical means?”
It’s plausible that a man who made his billions fucking everyone over who was even remotely near him….
… developed a conscience?
https://apnews.com/article/business-philanthropy-b8acb10f529ac2dbaff7631021d823c9
It’s a tax dodge
Have you ever worked with the Gates foundation? Because calling it a “tax dodge” like that is completely baseless, they’re a really reallyngood charity, like honestly one of the best in the world, and also that’s very ignorant of how taxes work.
They do good work and help people? That’s great! They do the best work out of all charities worldwide? That’s even better!
Still a tax dodge. You really want to help the world, donate. The money being out of their control is kind of the point…
How is the money being out of their control the point?
The point is to save lives and help people, which the Gates foundation does incredibly well.
And it’s not a tax dodge, he’s literally just not selling his Microsoft shares for cash, getting taxed, and then giving the money to the foundation and instead just giving the foundation the shares directly.
and also that’s very ignorant of how taxes work.
You could just google it and alleviate your own ignorance of all the scummy ways both the foundation and the trust are used to avoid taxes (and other expenses.) here’s a forbe’s article with the stuff they’re actually allowed to talk about. The “good work” you’re so keen to point out… is part of the grift.
Specifically so schmucks like you pounce whenever some schmuck like me says “they’re not that nice.” That’s the part about “reputation washing”. he gives some money - literal pocket change for somebody that makes nearly 11 million per day.
you don’t get that fucking rich by being “nice” or “decent” or even human, really. this is about Bezos, but it puts their wealth into perspective. Decent humans, with that kind of wealth could solve global housing. Or they could solve the food shortage. he hasn’t even come close to that. No. The foundation isn’t a force for good, even if it occasionally does good shit.
for example, the Rich Douche exploited the pandemic to make money, by investing in vaccine companies. And refusing to release the IP on the Vaccine. Because that would hurt
histhe foundation’s profits.here’s a forbe’s article
Here’s what your Forbes article says:
A strong case can be made that the ability of the Bill and Melinda Gates to keep their money and use it for charitable purposes was the biggest and best tax break in American history.
The “good work” you’re so keen to point out… is part of the grift.
My dude, are you hearing yourself?
My dude, I have worked with the foundation to help create diagnostic tools for deseases that would otherwise gone unnoticed in developing countries.
The work we have done has saved thousands and thousands of peoples lives. So you can take your.
The “good work” you’re so keen to point out… is part of the grift.
And shove it right up your arse. If saving peoples lives is a “grift” to you because bill Gates didn’t sell his shares in Microsost before he gave them to his trust, because obviously the shares will keep increasing in price, then honestly I don’t fucking care.
And yes I know Bill Gates did shitty things and screwed a lot of people over in his early carrier to become so rich and I’m not excusing that. But the Gates foundation isn’t part of that and has done way too much good for humanity as a whole for some ignorant chucklefuck with no first hand experience of what they do to dismiss it as a “grift”.
I forsee her not being arrested
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.
It’s a “freedom to” vs “freedom from” issue. The US is much more on the “freedom to” side. For example, freedom to own firearms overrules freedom from gun violence. In this case, it’s freedom to say nasty shit overrules freedom from hearing nasty shit. This is also why libertarianism is so popular here (they’re all about having the “freedom to,” even when it’s at others’ expense). This isn’t always the case of course (our strict zoning laws and development codes are a great example of “freedom from” overruling “freedom to”).
I’m in Canada. The number of people who think we have free speech laws similar to our neighbours (and what they think they can get away with) is staggering.
And the US laws should be more like Scotland’s. Hate speech is implicitly violent and should be treated as such.
