Trans people are protected, women are not
Leicester Police issue a Statement on a previous Statement (or collection of tweets) about Hate Crime:
Temporary Chief Constable Rob Nixon said: “Over the past week, a number of social media posts were issued on our Leicestershire Police Stay Safe account aiming to raise awareness of hate crime. This was as part of National Hate Crime Awareness Week.”
Twitter, that is. He means “our Leicestershire Police Stay Safe Twitter account” but forgot to say so. “Social media” isn’t just another word for Twitter. It includes Twitter but it isn’t limited to Twitter.
“While we recognise that people have strong and often conflicting views regarding this issue, we should not forget the seriousness of hate crime and the devastating crimes that as a country we have seen in the past which have happened as a result of hate crime.”
As a result of hate, he means. Not crimes that have happened as a result of hate crime, but crimes that have happened as a result of hate. If you’re going to issue statements at least make them clear.
“Hate crimes are acts of violence or hostility directed at people because of who they are. Hate crime law in England and Wales have developed in various phases over the past two decades and the law recognises five protected characteristics; race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.”
But not sex. Trans women are protected, but women are not. Lesbians are protected, but women as a whole are not. Women are not protected as women though some can be included under one of the protected characteristics. It’s old news, but that doesn’t make it ordinary or acceptable news. Misogyny is pervasive, yet somehow sex is not a protected characteristic.
But is that really what the law is? Hasn’t Stonewall been saying this, but wrongly?
As with so many other terms, it seems that TRAs and the UK police especially have shifted the meaning of the word “hate crime”. It is not a crime motivated by hate anymore, now “hate crime” means “A statement that people may interpret as hate is in itself a crime”. How else can we explain that women get visited by the police for twitter posts?
As I understand it, ‘hate crime’ is something that is supposed to be established during a trial for an actual crime, such as assault and battery, for the purpose of fairness in sentencing.
After it has been proved to the satisfaction of the court that the accused is guilty of the crime, only then is the motive of hatred towards a protected characteristic of the victim taken into account.
It’s not, whatever Stonewall might have persuaded the police to believe, illegal to hate anyone because of their protected characteristics; but if someone commits a crime which is motivated by that hatred, and that can be established in addition to the guilt for the actual crime, the guilty can be facing a harsher sentence.
For example someone could be guilty of beating up their same-sex spouse, but would likely be successful in claiming that it was not a hate crime, because hatred of homosexuality wasn’t a factor.
Second example: expressing gender-critical views on social media, however hateful the police social media representative might consider them, are not covered by the hate crime regulations because no crime has been committed.
They are indulging in intimidation by lying, which is almost certainly illegal.