“Arrest me.” Rowling rails against new Scottish law. Prime Minister Sunak also supported her

Writer Joanne K. Rowling (58) called on Scottish police to arrest her. She did so after a series of tweets in which she ironically celebrated several known transgender rapists or politically active individuals in the transgender movement. Subsequently, she closed the thread, stating that none of the mentioned individuals is a biological woman. In doing so, she fell foul of Scotland’s new hate speech law. According to her, the new law is the end of freedom of speech in Scotland, because it does not allow to say, for example, such an obvious fact as the description of human sex. Rowling was then supported by a number of politicians, including British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Rowling’s mentioned thread opposes the law, which significantly expands the punishment of hatred against individuals or a group of persons. While in the past the law mainly covered racism, it now also covers insults based on age, disability, sexual orientation or gender. The law punishes a similar act with up to seven years in prison. Rowling, who became famous for the book saga about Harry Potter, is known for her long-term criticism of transgender people and her defense of biological sex. In the past, she said that she could wallpaper her house with the death threats she received in connection with transgender criticism.

In an extensive thread on the social network X, she named, for example, trans activist Beth Douglas, who took a picture of herself with a knife and an ax at the time of the law’s adoption. Or Isla Bryson – this twice-convicted sex offender officially changed her gender shortly before her sentencing. She also mentions Amy George in the thread. She is in prison for raping an eleven-year-old girl for 27 hours while still a man. Rowling also mentions some trans activists in the thread. For example, Katie Neeves, she represents Great Britain in the UN women’s panel.

“Of course I’m joking. It’s obvious that the people mentioned above are not women in the slightest, they’re all men, all rolled into one,” Rowling said. Below, she then harshly criticized gender, which she called, among other things, a new religious concept that is unprovable and unverifiable.

“Scottish lawmakers seem to place more emphasis on the feelings of men who perform their image of femininity, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of real women and girls,” Rowling said. If the exact description of biological sex is outlawed, according to Rowling, freedom of speech and belief is over.

“I am currently abroad, but if what I have written here can be considered an offense under the new law, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Rowling wrote.

In the reactions, some people warned her that she could expose herself to legal problems and that she should have deleted the tweet. She responded to this advice by saying that she agreed, because she broke the law on purpose and therefore must be investigated. So it is possible that he wants to make a mockery of the law with a court case that would probably attract a lot of media attention.

However, most of the reactions on social network X and beyond support Rowling’s view. And among them a number of prominent politicians. For example, the British Minister for Scotland, Alister Jack, described the law as “a truly awful piece of legislation”. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also stood behind Rowling, saying that his party would always stand on the side of free speech. “People should not be criminalized for stating simple biological facts,” Sunak said.