Women, Scotland and Hate Crimes
Mandy Rhodes in Holyrood Magazine highlights another absurd aspect of Humza Yousaf's hate crime act - women may hold up half the sky, but they are still excluded from the legislation because this might offend a tiny number of men:“Aptly enough on April Fools’ Day, we get a new hate crime law that doesn’t mention the hate that is the wallpaper to most women’s everyday lives”. My latest @HolyroodDaily column. I await the knock at the door! https://t.co/Mx6qh5Y1js
— mandy rhodes (@holyroodmandy) March 24, 2024
"Sex is the only protected characteristic within the Equality Act not to be included in the hate crime legislation. At the time of the passage of the bill in 2021, the then justice secretary Humza Yousaf argued that including “an aggravation for ‘sex’ rather than ‘gender’ could exclude trans women i.e. if a trans woman was attacked because they were perceived to be a biological woman rather than because they were trans”.