1/ The problem of introducing hatred of women (misogyny) as a hate crime: Sections 145 and 146 Criminal Justice Act 2003 (in England and Wales) allow criminal courts to increase sentences for aggravation related to disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.
2/ What matters in the current criminal hate crime legislation (not to be confused with the Equality Act provisions) is the offender’s perception. It follows that if one is 'gay bashed' it doesn't matter whether one is actually gay; the motivation is the offender's perception.
3/ The danger is this framework is being superimposed on the proposed framework for creating woman-hatred as a hate crime. There are only two sexes & the woman-hatred that women face, at a criminal level: harassment, assault etc., is coming from men & males. Period.
4/ Yet the proposal, soon to be the law in Scotland & under consideration by the Law Commission in England & Wales, is to make woman-hatred / misogyny subject to the offender's perception, completely ignoring that being a woman is not about perception.
5/ Being a woman is a lived reality, whether or not one is perceived to be a woman or not; whether one looks female and feminine or not.
By using the language of existing hate crime legislation, based on perception, women are actually being quietly written out of their sex-class
By using the language of existing hate crime legislation, based on perception, women are actually being quietly written out of their sex-class
6/ Enter the nonsense of "different types of women". Let's be clear, this is not a reference to transmen, who would be afforded no protection under the current proposals; or butch masculine women. No, it's all about including trans identified males, transwomen.
7/ Should transwomen enjoy protection from hate crime? Absolutely & they already do because transgender identity is already on the statute books as an aggravating hate crime characteristic. But I accept the matter is more complex.
8/ What about the transwoman who has truly transitioned and presents as a woman and lives as a woman and catches hell as a woman? Should she enjoy protection, as a woman? Should she have to out herself as transgender in order to achieve justice? No, I don't believe she should.
9/ And therein lies the huge complexity and dilemma: the move away from transition to declaration of trans status has meant that the ranks of transwomen are now flooded with every variety of male person, including cross-dressers, identifying as women.
10/ Should these poorly transitioned males, who are obviously male, enjoy the protection of hate crime legislation designed to protect women against woman-hatred, when it is this cohort of males who visit breath-taking levels of hatred against natal women? No way.
11/ We are living through one of the worse misogynistic moments in our lifetimes. Woman-hatred is running rampant. It's terrifying because our politicians & the organisations that we imagined would be there to protect us are all drunk on the trans elixir.
12/ What matters is not that women are being pursued out of their jobs, threatened with rape & assault online and in person for the crime of advocating for women as a sex-based class. What matters is to hand trans identified males another weapon to use against natal women.
13/ None of this complexity is being acknowledged. Instead people that should frankly know better are replacing anxious scrutiny of the issues with vacuous TWAW mantras.
This is a truly sinister development that must be resisted.
END
This is a truly sinister development that must be resisted.
END
1.1/ *racially & religiously aggravated hate crimes are also on the statute books, again on basis of presumption / perception.
11/ *worst
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