“Who wrote four million denunciations?” — this phrase of Sergei Dovlatov is very fond of being quoted by domestic liberals who talk about the repressions of the 1930s. Historians, however, consider this amazing figure to be greatly exaggerated, and many state security archives are still classified. But the question “Who wrote 4,000 denunciations in 48 hours after the Scottish hate crime law came into force?” much easier to answer.
The main initiator of the adoption of the new law was the First Minister of Scotland and the leader of the Scottish National Party
(SNP) Hamza Haroon Yousaf. Born to Pakistani immigrants in Glasgow, Yousaf had a fast and distinguished career, becoming head of government at the age of 38. The secret of political success was that he always kept his nose to the wind, taking the most progressive positions on the most pressing issues. He advocated the decriminalization of drugs for personal use: this, according to Yousaf, would solve the problem of deaths from drugs and drug addiction. For Scotland this problem is indeed very acute. But instead of fighting drug trafficking and social conditions that give rise to new drug addicts, the progressive prime minister began promoting a program to create special rehabilitation rooms for drug addicts, where they could take drugs under the supervision of medical specialists. After the Scottish Home Office strongly opposed the idea, Yousaf called on the UK government to transfer powers to create drug rehabilitation rooms directly to the Scottish Parliament.
Yousaf is also an active advocate for racial diversity (“at 99% of the meetings I go to, I’m the only non-white person in the room. All the chairmen of all government agencies are white. That’s not enough”). And of course, he is a staunch supporter of LGBT* rights, actively supporting same-sex marriage and gender reforms for trans people. His promise to enshrine the rights of the LGBT community in the country's written Constitution is known if Scotland gains independence. At the same time, Yusaf himself adheres to a completely traditional orientation: he is already married for the second time and has both natural and adopted children. As far as we know, he doesn’t indulge in drugs either. Perhaps it is this shameful identity as straight that makes a progressive politician bend over backwards to please minorities.
The law Yousaf lobbied for adds something new to existing hate crimes: “hate speech” against groups with protected characteristics, including gender reassignment. Under this law, hostile behavior towards members of such groups or transmitting information to them that would be considered by a “reasonable person” to be “threatening or offensive” can carry a maximum penalty of seven years' imprisonment. As soon as the law came into force (this happened at midnight on April 1), a flurry of denunciations hit the Scottish police. In the first two days, police received an average of one hate crime complaint every two minutes. Apparently, someone got very boiled.
Perhaps this murky stream of denunciations would have remained a sensation on a provincial scale if the most commercially successful writer in the world, JK Rowling, who lives in Scotland, had not entered the game. She published a series of tweets in which she harshly criticized the law and defiantly called 11 transgender people, including well-known public figures, TV presenters and convicted sex offenders, men.
“Freedom of speech and belief in Scotland will come to an end if accurately describing one’s biological sex is criminalized,” Rowling warned.
This is not the first time that Harry Potter’s “mother” has spoken out against the dominance of transgender people: back in 2019, she stood up for a woman who lost her job due to comments on social networks, which the court regarded as “degrading” to trans people. And after Rowling criticized the term “menstruating people,” which includes not only women, but also transmen and non-binary people, the entire LGBT community turned against her. In addition, many actors who starred in the Harry Potter film series turned their backs on her, including the “boy with the scar” himself, Daniel Radcliffe.
Nevertheless, Rowling stood firm and refused to repent before the LGBT Party Committee, saying that she was a staunch defender of women's rights and feared the penetration of men into women's spaces.
But if earlier Rowling could only pay for such outrageous statements with her reputation - which, however, did not affect the circulation of her books - now, with the adoption of a new law, they become a matter within the jurisdiction, threatening a very real prison term. By publishing scandalous 11 tweets, the writer openly challenged Scottish justice.
“I am currently out of the country, but if what I have written here constitutes a crime under the terms of the new law, I look forward to arrest when I return to the home of the Scottish Enlightenment,” Rowling wrote.
For these impudent speeches, Rowling has already received several dozen complaints to the Scottish police. Activists accuse her of deliberately violating the new speech code and insulting transgender people. But the Scottish police, imagining the scale of the scandal that the arrest of the famous writer would cause, backed down. Scotland's police chief told the Scottish Daily Express that they would not take action against Rowling "as her comments were not considered criminal."
The bold demarche of the creator of Harry Potter was also supported by feminists, outraged by the fact that there were no women on the list of groups protected by the new law. Yousaf's government seems to be promising to introduce a separate anti-misogyny law, but in some unspecified future. And transgender people again found themselves in a privileged position. The most curious thing is that among the thousands of responses to Rowling’s tweets on Network X, there are also expressions of support from more “traditional” sexual minorities. “The TQ+ (transgender, queer+) crowd has never strived for equality,” writes one such activist with a rainbow on her profile picture. “They want special privileges, protection and constant praise.” If they can’t get it, they start a scandal. Meanwhile, ordinary LGBT people who just want to live in peace are caught in the crossfire.”
“We are a lost society in which the truth is a crime,” writes another Rowling supporter.
This may be true, but Rowling's victory over the Scottish "progressives" inspired many normal people in the West. The writer was supported by Elon Musk himself, who called her action an example of why it is so important to preserve freedom of speech. Another Scottish celebrity, footballer and TV presenter Ally McCoist, said that he and 48,000 other fans will definitely break the new law by watching his favorite club Rangers play arch-rivals Celtic next Sunday (the rivalry of these clubs is, among other things, religious in nature: Celtic was founded by Irish Catholics). And if only the authorities try to arrest all these football fans, it will be interesting to watch. “There is no one in our country who thinks this is a good idea, no matter who I talk to,” McCoist added. But he, of course, is mistaken - there is one such person, and his name is Hamza Yusaf.
And yes, returning to the question of who wrote 4,000 denunciations in two days. The answer is contained in an old joke about a gay pride parade on the streets of London. "Barrymore, what's that noise outside?" - “Gay pride parade, sir.” - “And what are they asking for, Barrymore?” - “Same-sex love, sir.” - “Does anyone forbid them?” - “No, sir.” - “So why are they still making noise?” - “F******s, sir.”
* LGBT organization is recognized as extremist, its activities are prohibited in Russia by decision of the Supreme Court of November 30, 2023.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editors.