Humza Yousaf’s misogyny law
is a threat to women (by Joan Smith)
It couldn’t be clearer, surely: misogyny is fear or
hatred of women. The fact that it has been left out of legislation against hate
crime, including Scotland’s new law which came into force this month, has
been widely criticised. Why shouldn’t women be protected in the same way as all
the other groups who can now complain about a new offence of “stirring up
hatred”?
It seems obvious, until you realise that some of
the most prominent people pushing for misogyny to become a hate crime have
another agenda. Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, let the cat out of the
bag when he revealed yesterday the real intention behind the SNP’s proposal to
bring in a standalone law on misogyny.
Yousaf claims that
men can be victims of misogyny — and that they’re as or more likely to be
targets than women. “Trans women will be protected as well, as they will often
be the ones who suffer threats of rape or threats of disfigurement for
example,” he said, offering no evidence for the assertion. This only confirms
that the Scottish government’s capture by gender ideology remains unshaken by
the publication of the Cass Report last week.
On the contrary, Yousaf doubled down, repeating one
of the most cherished illusions of trans-identified males. “When a trans woman
is walking down the street and a threat of rape is made against them, the man
making the threat doesn’t know if they are a trans woman or a cis woman,” he
claimed.
Very few men who have gone through male puberty are
able to “pass” as women, a fact revealed by constant complaints from trans
women about being “misgendered”. One of the first things we notice about
another human being is their sex, and understandably so — because men are
responsible for the vast majority of violence against women.
Now Scotland’s most powerful politician is telling
us that trans women are indistinguishable from biological women. Not just that:
he is arguing that a law against misogyny is needed to protect the very people
who categorically cannot experience it. The novelist J.K. Rowling was quick to
make the point, opening a new front in her ongoing war of words with the First
Minister.
“Once again, Humza Yousaf makes his absolute
contempt for women and their rights clear,” she declared on
X. “Women were excluded from his nonsensical hate crime law, now he introduces
a ‘misogyny law’ designed to also protect men.”
It’s even worse than that. A law against misogyny
is a Trojan horse, as feminists have repeatedly warned. Trans women don’t need
additional protection because they’re already covered by existing legislation.
Yet politicians who call for misogyny to be made a hate crime, such as the Labour
MP Stella Creasy, have always insisted that it would apply to
trans-identified males.
It’s a backdoor way of getting the courts to recognise
“gender identity”, creating another opportunity for men to be addressed as
women in the criminal justice system. Misogyny is real and it affects every
woman, but the law should not be misused to affirm men’s “inner feelings”. Do
we really want to risk a ludicrous situation where a gender-critical woman
finds herself in court, accused of misogyny by a man who claims to be a woman?
Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She
has been Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board
since 2013. Her book Homegrown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into
Terrorists was published in 2019.
