JK Rowling Responds To New Scottish Hate Crime Laws

Scotland have this week introduced new hate crime laws designed to better protect people from hate speech, particularly online, and JK Rowling is less than impressed.

Taking to X (formerly Twitter) the author published a series of posts on Monday taking aim at the new legislation.

JK Rowling: “Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness”

The new laws which have now come into effect in Scotland relate to “stirring up hatred” against others on the basis of age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, being intersex or one’s transgender identity.

“The Bill has been created to make sure that the groups covered by the Bill are protected from hate crimes” the overview reads.

“It also makes sure that the laws that provide that protection are fit for the 21st century.”

However JK Rowling believes this will impede free speech.

Before posting her lengthy response to the introduction of the legislation Rowling first took at aim the transgender community in a series of posts.

The author posted several images of trans people who had been charged or accused of sexual offences in an attempt to make her point and followed this with several other posts targeting trans women in the media around the world.

“In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls” she posted online.

“The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex” she continued.

“I look forward to being arrested”

“For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of ‘woman’ to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women’s and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.”

She concluded her lengthy post with an acknowledgement that its content could see her charged under the new legislation changes.

“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”