Member

Why focus on just the risk that people will get into trouble with the police for misgendering? I would prefer it if none of the new aggravators was added to the statutory charging framework, but I think the transgender one will cause the most mischief. Why do I say that? It is because I know from experience just how great the risk is of women getting into trouble for standing up for sex-based women’s rights and expressing their belief that sex is binary and immutable. At the Free Speech Union, we fought over 5,400 cases in our six-year existence, and 40% of those, by far the largest category, are coded “sex and gender” in our case database. That is over 2,000 cases—nurses, cleaners and dinner ladies getting into trouble for saying they do not want to get changed in front of biological men or that they do not think women should be forced to compete against men in sports like football or rugby, or, yes, using the wrong pronouns when addressing or referring to persons who are transgender—and at the moment that can include being arrested, charged and convicted.