Monday, February 11, 2019

Welcome to the Police State


Welcome to the police state. Not the American police state but the police state in Once-Great Britain.

You see, the Brits take their transgenderism seriously. If you manage to misidentify a transitioning or transitioned individual, if you call someone who believes he is a she a he or someone who believes she is a he a she… you can be arrested and summarily tossed in jail.

No kidding.

Now, disbelief has been criminalized. Failure to adhere to the tenets of political correctness is now a crime in Great Britain.

The Daily Mail tells what happened to one Kate Scottow. She was arguing over Twitter with a transgender activist named Stephanie Hayden over the proper pronouns. For her pains,  
Scottow was treated as a common criminal:

A mother was arrested in front of her children and locked up for seven hours after referring to a transgender woman as a man online.

Three officers detained Kate Scottow at her home before quizzing her at a police station about an argument with an activist on Twitter over so-called 'deadnaming'.

The 38-year-old, from Hitchin, Hertfordshire, had her photograph, DNA and fingerprints taken and remains under investigation.

More than two months after her arrest on December 1, she has had neither her mobile phone or laptop returned, which she says is hampering her studies for a Masters in forensic psychology.

Scottow explained the indignities she suffered:

Writing on online forum Mumsnet, Mrs Scottow – who has also been served with a court order that bans her from referring to her accuser as a man – claimed: 'I was arrested in my home by three officers, with my autistic ten-year-old daughter and breastfed 20-month-old son present. 

'I was then detained for seven hours in a cell with no sanitary products (which I said I needed) before being interviewed then later released under investigation ... I was arrested for harassment and malicious communications because I called someone out and misgendered them on Twitter.'

Activist Hayden has made it a mission to visit judicial harassment on those who refuse to call her by her preferred pronoun:

Sitcom writer Graham Linehan was given a verbal harassment warning by West Yorkshire Police after transgender activist Stephanie Hayden reported him for referring to her by her previous names and pronouns on Twitter. 

Hayden has accused Scottow of defamatory language… though, to the best of my knowledge, defamation is not a criminal offense. It is a civil tort. Why jail someone who is accused of defamation… if not to criminalize the use of bad language.

The Daily Mail explains what is in the court filings:

The papers claim that, as a 'toxic' debate raged online over plans to allow people to 'self-ID' as another gender, Mrs Scottow tweeted 'defamatory' messages about Miss Hayden. 

She is also alleged to have used accounts in two names to 'harass, defame, and publish derogatory and defamatory tweets' about Miss Hayden, including referring to her as male, stating she was 'racist, xenophobic and a crook' and mocking her as a 'fake lawyer'.

Mrs Scottow denied harassing or defaming Miss Hayden and said she holds a 'genuine and reasonable belief' that a human 'cannot practically speaking change sex', but Deputy Judge Jason Coppel QC issued an interim injunction that bans her from posting any personal information about Miss Hayden on social media, 'referencing her as a man' or linking her to her 'former male identity'. 

So, in Once-Great Britain it’s a crime to “deadname” an individual and to refer to her former male identity. It will get you arrested and tossed in jail.

As Camille Paglia once opined, it’s a sign of cultural collapse.


5 comments:

trigger warning said...

The British police have lost the plot. The old joke about the difference between heaven and hell is officially obsolete.

Related:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/01/24/man-investigated-police-retweeting-transgender-limerick/

Ares Olympus said...

Deadnaming, that's a new term to me, apparently like saying Bruce Jenner. Myself, I'd tend to see names like tree rings. If you have to rot out the previous rings of your existence, you're a hollow tree that easily falls down.

I had one activist friend who said everyone should be arrested at least once in your life so you'll know what its like, and you'll learn how to not become intimidated by abuses of power. And doing things that risk arrest can be called civil disobedience, like willfully sitting in a bus seat reserved for white people for instance. But of course its always better to be able to choose when and where and how, and have all your affairs in order. Cool, calm, and collected strategy should lead over passionate indignation. Being a victim just isn't worth it.

I recall the military question "Is this the hill you want to die on?" Myself, if Bruce complained about my deadnaming, I'll apologize, but still mention my tree ring analogy just in case I can win him/her over with depersonalized mythopoetic logic.

Sam L. said...

Proof that "once-great" is the correct modifier of "Britain".

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

You must believe in Santa Claus. You must.

After all, it fits the economic model.

UbuMaccabee said...

What is to be done? Awaken the normals. When the normals catch fire, these statist martinets will be running for the hills. When every school board meeting and government office is filled with angry normals, the game is over. Mau-Mau the flak catchers, and Mau-Mau them hard.