British broadcaster India Willoughby is claiming that Northumbria Police have logged a “Non Crime Hate Incident” against Harry Potter creator JK Rowling after he reported the beloved author for “misgendering” him.
While Willoughby has long expressed his contempt of Rowling, having made hundreds of tweets about her gender critical statements over the years, the tension came to a head this week after Rowling stated that Willoughby did not “become a woman.”
On March 3, Rowling made a post in support of women’s single-sex spaces, which trans activists quickly clamored under to interrogate.
“Why should trans women be forced to use male spaces? Don’t you understand just how humiliating for us that would be? Or don’t you care?” one user questioned, to which Rowling replied: “Somebody really should have explained to you that your hurt feelings don’t trump other people’s rights, nor are women and girls validation props or comfort blankets.”
Another user, by the name of Socialist Stanley, then confronted Rowling with a gif of British broadcaster and trans activist India Willoughby, writing: “Hi Joanne, so you are saying this lady should use the men’s locker room then?!”
Rowling responded: “India didn’t become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is.”
Willoughby, born Jonathan, began claiming to be a woman in 2015 at the age of 50, officially becoming the UK’s first transgender newsreader. He has previously incited criticism for boasting of getting a “designer vagina,” which he said he chose from a catalogue like “going for a haircut.”
Rowling’s comment sparked widespread outrage amongst trans activists, with Willoughby quickly noticing and insisting he was, in fact, a woman. He quote-posted Rowling’s comments, writing: “the debate about whether JK Rowling is a transphobe is over.”
In a later tweet, Rowling affirmed her right to accurately sex trans-identified males.
“Accurately sexing trans-identified men who send misogynistic abuse to women is not discrimination. ‘Man’ is not a slur… there is no human right to universal validation.”
But Willoughby continued to escalate the situation, going so far as to suggest that Rowling would be responsible in the event of his murder, writing: “If I ever get murdered, you know who to blame. #StochasticTerrorism.” The term “stochastic terrorism” refers to when popular figures publicly demonize a person or group in such a way that inspires their supporters to commit a violent act against the target of the speech.
On March 6, Willoughby announced that he had reported Rowling to Northumbria Police for misgendering him. In an interview with Byline TV, Willoughby boasted that it was a “cut and dry offense.” In their caption of the interview, Byline TV, an ostensibly pro-trans outlet, claimed that “this could lead to Rowling’s arrest.”
But yesterday, Northumbria Police announced they would not be investigating Rowling based on the report, noting that the complaint “did not meet the criminal threshold.”
On X (formerly Twitter), Willoughby claimed that police had told him that Rowling’s comments “met the criteria for hate” but did not meet the full requirement for prosecution of a hate crime. This is presumably because “hate crimes” in the United Kingdom require an underlying criminal offense to have occurred.
But Willoughby did state that police had recorded event as a “non-crime hate incident.”
According to the College of Police, non-crime hate incidents are defined as an incident that is not a criminal offense, but may have been motivated “wholly or partially by hostility.”
The incidents may be utilized to later constitute an actual criminal charge. Alleged victims of non-crime hate incidents are often referred to victims services.
But, if confirmed, Northumbria Police appears to have incorrectly applied the Non-Crime Hate Incident designation. As noted by women’s rights advocate Maya Forstater, the official Non-Crime Hate Incident Code of Practice clearly details Freedom of Expression in the context of expressing views critical of gender ideology.
The United Kingdom has long been seen as ground-zero for much of the gender ideology debate, with stories routinely emerging from the nation about women being arrested or criminalized for not adequately validating a trans-identified male’s identity.
In 2019, a mother in Hertfordshire was arrested in front of her children and held for over 7 hours after being reported for “misgendering” a man who identified as a woman on Twitter. Kate Scottow’s conviction was ultimately overturned on appeal the next year, but was just one of many similar cases that would emerge.
The incorrect application of “hate crime” and “non-crime hate incidents” in the nation has also come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, with several police forces demonstrating an ideological bias in their application of the law.
In October of 2022, Leicestershire Police were forced to retract a social media campaign after incorrectly suggesting that calling a transgender person by a non-preferred name would be considered a reportable hate crime.
Sussex Police also issued an apology after scolding users on social media for referring to a transgender serial pedophile as “a man.” The force deleted a number of posts on X with what many considered to be thinly-veiled threats of prosecution towards women who had condemned a press release referring to the child rapist as “female.”
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