I’m flying to Dublin to talk to the Seanad (Senate) this afternoon, about the dangerous and draconian Hate Speech bill currently making its way through the Irish parliament. It’s already passed the lower house (Dáil) and is now being presented to the Seanad. 1/7
When a crime has no definition, anyone can be found guilty. And that’s what’s going to happen if this bill becomes law, because it criminalises “hate” without defining it. 3/7
Among the protected characteristics in this law is “gender”, circularly defines as: “The gender which a person expresses as the person’s preferred gender, or with which the person identifies, and includes transgender, and a gender other than those of male and female”. 4/7
It is likely to criminalise voicing views that risk resulting in “hatred” (remember, there’s no definition of this!) towards male people who want access to women’s changing rooms and sports because they feel female. Penalty: up to five years in jail. 5/7
It will also be a crime to merely POSSESS material that is “likely to incite violence or hatred against a person or a group of persons”. Unless you can prove that you don’t intend to disseminate that material, it will be presumed that you do intend to do so. 6/7
This bill is literally Orwellian: it creates an undefined offence of thoughtcrime. As Ireland is the European HQ for most social media companies, it will have huge implications for what is allowable in conversations on trans ideology on social media all across Europe. 7/7
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Delighted that Arif Ahmed, Cambridge philosophy prof and free-speech champion, has been appointed to the board of the EHRC. It was Arif who invited me to speak at Caius a few weeks ago telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/0…
My favourite of the articles lamenting the Women’s Equality Party’s decision to accept a redefinition of “women” to include “men”. And the more general pointlessness of luvvie feminists. RIP WEP telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/12/0…
Phalloplasties are gruesome operations with very poor outcomes and very high failure rates. Yet transactivists are lobbying for the cash-strapped NHS to pay for transmen to be flown abroad to have them. lbc.co.uk/news/taxpayers…
Today’s reading list: a [not at all] short thread.
I really must do these a bit more often so they don’t become forbiddingly long. As I’m afraid this one is—and that’s despite me leaving out lots.
In one of the most pleasing examples imaginable of poetic justice, child sex-change lobby group Mermaids, which is seeking to have LGB Alliance’s charitable status removed, faces a full statutory investigation by the Charity Commission thetimes.co.uk/article/formal…
SO enjoying Hadley Freeman released from the Guardian’s, and Kath Viner’s, dead hand of anti-journalism. Here, in UnHerd, she writes about Mermaids with in the way she begged for someone, anyone, to be allowed to do at the Graun—and was told no unherd.com/2022/11/mermai…
Today’s reading list: a short thread
First, Sonia Sodha in the Observer, pointing out that failures on the left have left the Tories as the defenders of women’s rights theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Better late than never, I suppose: the Guardian suddenly notices the sharp rise in girls claiming special gender identities (not Amelia Gentleman’s fault, she’s excellent, I blame the paper’s editor) theguardian.com/society/2022/n…
Better late than never, part 2: the NYT finally registers that puberty-blockers aren’t the wondrous, risk-free pause button they’ve previously touted. Also significant because written by some of their best investigative journalists nytimes.com/2022/11/14/hea…
Today’s reading list: a short thread.
It's been a while, so this is basically just the biggest stories. And no doubt I’ll have missed plenty.
Signs that liberal America is waking up to the evils of paediatric gender medicine, exhibit 1: the NYT nytimes.com/2022/11/14/hea…
Signs that liberal America is waking up to the evils of paediatric gender medicine, exhibit 2: Reuters reuters.com/investigates/s…
Too many articles on Scotland’s gender mess to share them all, but here are two standouts for me: one on Scarfgate scotsman.com/news/politics/…
Today’s reading list: a short thread.
I’m going to kick off with a video (my list, my rules!) – me in Caius two weeks ago, which went online last night. Hope I was reasonably coherent, as I tried to keep speaking over the toddlers tantrumming outside
Can’t remember if I already shared, about a 2nd email from “Pippa”, in which she frames her attempt to wield the heckler’s veto against me as free speech. Idle curiosity, but I wonder if she’s _actually_ read my book, and listened to lots of my podcasts? telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/11/0…
Lovely piece by Charlie Bentley-Astor @astor_charlie , a former gender patient, in Varsity, in which she makes the case for listening to people you disagree with (and also points out that my views are ordinary and widely shared) varsity.co.uk/comment/24549
Today’s reading list: a short thread
On Thursday members of the Society of Authors will vote, in effect, on whether to back Joanne Harris’s brand of intolerance or to reject it thetimes.co.uk/article/joanne…
More analysis of the biggest rebellion of Nicola Sturgeon’s career, and the potential implications reaction.life/gender-bill-re…