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.
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.