Scottish Government Official Threatens JK Rowling with Investigation, Possible Arrest

The Scottish government – or one of its ministers, at least – is threatening JK Rowling. The Harry Potter author has been vocal about her opposition to trans women being considered the same as actual women and being allowed in female spaces, like women’s bathrooms, women’s prisons, and the like. She’s also said she would readily go to jail to defend freedom of speech. But now, Scotland has passed a new law called the Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which makes “stirring up hatred” of protected groups a crime punishable by a fine and up to seven years in prison. This law went into effect today. Rowling, in a post on X, said that the law could be abused to curtail freedom of speech and puts “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,” and she “look[s] forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.” You can see her post below:

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉

Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them.

In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their…

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) April 1, 2024

In response, the Scottish community safety minister, Siobhian Brown, spoke to the Telegraph, and while at first saying that misgendering someone wouldn’t fall under the law’s provisions, relented and said Rowling could indeed be investigated for saying anything the government deems anti-trans, then once more couched it with, “Whether or not the police would think it was criminal is up to Police Scotland for that.” What’s glaring about this is that they’re not even trying to prove Rowling wrong; they’re straight-up telling people to watch what they say. And that’s why the law is worded so broadly. Who decides what “stirring up hatred” is? You can bet it’s some over-sensitive pronoun Nazi who loves telling people what to do. And that’s beyond the idea that telling people what words they can say is an insane infringement on their rights. The only exceptions are supposed to be actual threats or calls to violence, which can be debated as legitimate limits, but this is definitely going to be used to silence anyone not on board with the trans agenda. And as proof of that – and of Rowling’s point that the law is anti-woman – you know what group is not protected by the Hate Crime and Public Order Act? Women! It’s like a parody of itself. But Rowling doesn’t sound like she wants to back down, and I don’t know if the Scottish government wants to deal with the fallout of arresting her. Aside from people kinda liking Harry Potter – and, by extension, its creator – the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling is currently trending on X.