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J.K. Rowling dared Scottish authorities to arrest her for criticizing transgender ideology as a new hate crime law took effect.
The law criminalizes “stirring up hatred” based on attributes including transgender identity.
Rowling argued this places higher value on feelings of trans-identifying men than rights of women and girls.
She warned freedom of speech is at an end, and looked forward to arrest upon returning to Scotland.
Rowling cited examples like a convicted rapist who claimed to be a woman and was placed in a female prison, sparking scandal.
“Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal,” she wrote.
“I’m currently out of the country, but if what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.”
She also highlighted a trans television personality as someone who is “not a woman at all.”
Rowling urged supporters to share her post with “#ArrestMe” to protest the law, which critics say uses vague language and low standards of proof that could enable political abuse and restrictions on dissenting views.
“The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women’s and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex,” she wrote.
Violators face up to seven years in prison.
