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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    3 months ago

    No, they’re telling you that gender is not sex.

    Of course biological sex is real. It’s just a lot more complicated than ‘male’ and ‘female’ because biology is not that simple. So yes, there are XY and XX humans and they can generally, but not universally, reproduce with each other. But that’s not all there is. For instance XXY and XYY are both possible, although often come with a host of other genetic problems (but not always). There are also people born with both types of genitalia, sometimes functional and sometimes not. On top of that, there are conditions like Swyer Syndrome, where someone with XY chromosomes has female genitalia and maybe even a functional female reproductive system.

    If trans people are telling you that biological sex is not male and female, that is what they mean.