Nichola Sturgeon bans free speech

They've thrown women (real actual women that is) under the bus in this act too.

My understanding of the term "aggravation" is that it means "making it worse" so the Bill means that if a crime includes an element of hate motivation it is made worse, and that should be taken into account in the sentencing.

Note that stirring up hatred towards AGE is added as one of the things that break the law. About time too, I hear many say - and if you agree, then you surely also agree that adding stirring it up toward other groups is equally overdue?

"The Bill updates the list of characteristics protected under hate crime legislation and proposes the addition of age to this list – where there is a statutory aggravation for offences motivated by prejudice. The Bill also provides for new ‘stirring up’ of hatred offences that would apply to all characteristics listed in the Bill: age, disability, race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. A statutory aggravation, in the hate crime context, is where the offender demonstrated, or was motivated by, malice and ill-will based on a listed characteristic (or characteristics). If the offender is found guilty, the court must take the aggravation into account when determining the sentence. Currently these offences only apply to stirring up racial hatred which has been an offence in Scots law – and the whole of the UK – for decades. The current stirring up of racial hatred offences are in the Public Order Act 1986.
www.gov.scot/news/hate-crime-bill-passed/

The latest official statistics show Police Scotland recorded 6,448 hate crimes in 2019-20

Real actual women are protected from hate attacks by this act as well as "unreal virtual" women (if that is the opposite of "real actual")

Sometimes it's difficult to tell if someone is "motivated by hate" or just playing devil's advocate for the sake of discussion on 'heated' topics.

What if the offended person's judgment of "motivated by hate" is wrong? It easily could be. It happens all the time.

I don't actually think government, Scottish or otherwise, has any place policing private conversations. Very tell-tale-tittish.

Sorry Elegran real actual women are not protected under this act. The amendment to include to include sex as a protected characteristic in an attempt to give women the same protection as a man in drag was voted down. So there is protection against 'stirring up hatred' on the basis of someone's race, religion, transgender identity including cross dressing, sexual orientation and age. But not on the basis of sex. Not women. Not girls.
Apart from this crime being virtually unpoliceable the Law Society has pointed out its many flaws.

Yes sex is not included. No protection for women unless they have another protected characteristic.

Galaxy

Yes sex is not included. No protection for women unless they have another protected characteristic.

It's very telling isn't it that women are not thought worth protecting just for being women? Misogyny is to be allowed because the system couldn't cope if it wasn't.

An independent group is considering whether to create a separate, standalone bill to address the issue of misogynistic abuse.

You might think it should have been included in the current bill, you might not. But to pretend that "real actual" women are being ignored is not correct.

Why could it not be included in this bill Alegrias. How would you feel of race had been missed out from the bill or any other protected characteristic. It's not accidental.

I don't know much about it TBH Galaxy. But my view is that this is about hate crime towards minorities because of their protected characteristics, and sex as such is not a protected characteristic.

I do think that adding in sex on top of all the other protected characteristics would have skewed the bill somewhat. And misogyny is not being ignored, its being looked at separately.

Sex is a protected characteristic under the equality act.

It's a deliberate omission alegrias, it's part of an ongoing row/split within the SNP.

Thanks Galaxy, as I said I haven't really looked at this too much. I will try to read up about it.

To be honest I dont any of it is to do with either concern for women or concern for transwomen, in my very cynical view both groups are being used as pawns in some sort of political positioning within the SNP.

Missing think in that sentence!

The SNP has been trying to position itself as ‘inclusive’ for some time, for example welcoming economic migrants and refugees. This foray into identity politics is just the latest thing. Some people will seize on this to pursue their own agenda.

I have a lot of admiration for Nicola Sturgeon as a woman who has risen to the top in the misogynist sphere of politics.

Come at me, fill yer boots.

Blossoming ? ?

Alegrias1 I'm amazed you didn't know sex is a protected characteristic under the equality act. I wonder how many others don't know, I'm guessing it will not be insignificant. It seems odd to exclude only that one category from this bill and talk of developing a whole separate one to tackle misogyny. In that case why not have separate bills for each of the categories which could be individually tailored to them? I'd lay bets that the misogyny bill will not be forthcoming in the near future but will be 'considered' for a great length of time.

Aveline

Sorry Elegran real actual women are not protected under this act. The amendment to include to include sex as a protected characteristic in an attempt to give women the same protection as a man in drag was voted down. So there is protection against 'stirring up hatred' on the basis of someone's race, religion, transgender identity including cross dressing, sexual orientation and age. But not on the basis of sex. Not women. Not girls.
Apart from this crime being virtually unpoliceable the Law Society has pointed out its many flaws.

This sort of nonsense is part of the direction of travel now. People being no-platformed, 'cancelled', bullied online for simply questioning the way in which women's rights are being pushed aside by transrights is depressingly common.

Did anyone see Caitlin Moran on Twitter the other day? She started with a tweet in solidarity with women's feelings of vulnerability in the wake of the Sarah Everard case, then panicked when she realised that her original comment hadn't explicitly included transwomen, so added another comment to do so, including 'women without wombs' in case they also got offended - it was tortuous.

If would be laughable, if not so serious, that people are already tying themselves in linguistic knots over what should be a straightforward expression of solidarity. Should everything we say be couched in terms that explicitly include every group in society, however small in number, in case they are so self-absorbed that they want to use the murder of a young woman into yet another opportunity to bang their drum?

I think that NS is pandering to the very young, who are more inclined to buy into the trans agenda, as they are statistically more likely to support independence, and can vote in the upcoming elections in Scotland.

Oh, here is the link to the Caitlin Moran debacle.

twitter.com/caitlinmoran/status/1369952485985648642

^ The Equality Act 2010 protects individuals from discrimination and harassment because of specified ‘protected characteristics’. This protection applies to those who have the protected characteristic, those perceived to have it and those who are associated with it. One of these protected characteristics is sex, which applies “to a man or to a woman”. Another is gender reassignment, which protects an individual who “is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person’s sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex”.^
Equality and Human Rights Commission. Scotland

Elegran so what is the point of this ill thought through new bill? I hope it goes the way of the other foolish legislation passed by this 'government.'

6,448 racial hate crimes were recorded in Scotland in 2019-20, and that was just racial hate. This legislation has been asked for by those who have suffered abuse for being "different". It has added other categories of minorities to those protected from the growing crime of "hate crime". Not from other people having opinions about their difference, but from having it used as a weapon against them. Those who have never experienced that abuse won't see the point.

The object is to bring Scotland into line with legislation in other countries.

I am not at all against having minorities protected by hate crime legislation, but I do object to sex being excluded from the protected categories, as crimes against women, simply because they are women, are depressingly common, and it makes no sense to me that sex, along with gender identity, race, age, sexual orientation, disability etc should not be a 'protected' characteristic.