JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over Scottish hate crime law
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.
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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
I have epilepsy. A special type of epilepsy. A type of epilepsy they didn’t know existed when I was “diagnosed” with it.
For the doctors - teams of neurologists and neuropsychologists - to treat me, the best option in 1991, after my drowning accident and subsequent TBI was a new study at Boston Children’s Hospital. For months, almost a year since the “accident”, doctors had run me through a course of medications meant to control my seizures, but none worked. I was desperate. My parents were desperate. We were willing to try anything.
For two weeks in March, during spring break, in 1992 and 1993, I went to the long-term monitoring unit at Boston Children’s Hospital and participated in a study where I had over 100 EEG leads glued to my head and they tested various different drugs on us to determine which ones would - or even could - control our seizures.
They discovered that, quite logically, that when someone has damage to a particular part of the brain (in my case, the frontal temporal lobe), seizures can be managed by giving the patient medication made to treat problems endemic to that region of the brain— in my case, either mood stabilizers or meds for migraines/cluster headaches.
I learned a long time ago that my time in a hospital, around doctors, going through a lot of uncomfortable and even scary procedures can really pay off in the end— and can even help countless others for the effort.
So don’t fret, buddy. You’re in good hands. I know the strain and pressure of being in a tough place with medical issues. Just be glad it’s 2024 and no time before.
Best wishes!
Thanks! I'm glad I didn't go through something like that as a kid. It must have been super rough. I can handle it a lot better in my mid-40s I'm sure.
You’re at the best place you could be. They’re gonna take care of you. Tell your mom to relax
That would be like telling the tide to not come up to your feet.
Oh, now, I’m sure game of Presidential Election Scrabble could quell that tide!
😉
We went with a jigsaw puzzle instead. They're frustrating for everyone involved and no one wins, so it's far less contentious.
Until you get to the Agatha Christian mystery of “who’s hiding the missing piece?” and your mother’s refusal to believe it was simply lost over the years.
In that case, I'd be the frustrated one. We got it at Goodwill and I said to her, "what if there's a piece missing?" and she said, "why does that matter?"
It matters! It soooo matters!
But it looks like it was brand new, so hopefully that won't be an issue. It is an issue that it's basically just a big ad for Costco, but what do you want for $4?
$4? I’d pay at least $8 for the assurance it was a complete set.
I wanna know.
Anything to keep her quiet.
Giant bottle of Jim Beam? I think cannabis is legal in Minnesota isn’t it?
Inebriate her. It’s what I do to my parents when they get to be “a bit much.” And, fuck it, get shitty with her.
It is not.
I have some with me anyway, but it is not. And neither is Wisconsin, the closest state over.
Thankfully, I brought enough for my needs.
Hold on, according to the googles, cannabis is in fact, legal in Minnesota. However, getting it where you are me be not an easy affair. However, I am glad that you managed to get what you need regardless.
As a New Yorker temporarily stuck in Florida, I had to go through some hoopty loopty bullshit of getting a medical card to get my weed. As you may or may not know, weed is extra special, super Duper legal in New York, as legal as booze or cigarettes. But in Florida, you actually have to get some stupid card and a prescription to get it, which is bullshit. it’s very transparently just a racket for so-called doctors and the state to get a cut as middlemen aka “private industry” rather than taxation and public interest get a stake. It also artificially introduces a high bar of entry to keep “undesirables” out and to help criminalize those who can’t afford entry into the “club”, further reinforcing the classist, racist structure.
I very much hope to be back in New York very soon.
Weed is definitely legal in Minnesota. I can tell you a few places here in the Twin Cities that sell edibles, but anything else is a bit harder to find because of how legalization happened - edibles happened first by accident because Republicans can't read, and last year with the DFL getting the house and senate they properly legalized it but the full rollout has been slower.