Last Updated 23:45:01 UTC Tuesday, December 15, 2020
UK — . A mother was quizzed by law enforcement and taken into police custody after posting online that a person who was born male is a man. Another woman, a mature retiree, was interrogated by police, because opinions she expressed online made it clear that she is a disbeliever in gender identity ideology.
Woman Arrested for ‘Misgendering’
On December 1, 2018, two officers went to the Hitchin, Hertfordshire home of 38-year-old Kate Scottow, a Masters degree candidate in forensic psychology.
The police arrested Ms Scottow on charges of harassment and malicious communications after Ms Scottow allegedly ‘misgendered’ Stephanie Hayden online between September 2018 and May 2019. Ms Scottow’s children, an autistic girl of 10 years and a 20-month-old son whom Ms Scottow breastfeeds, witnessed her arrest.
Officers seized Ms Scottow’s electronic devices, including a mobile phone and laptop. Law enforcement questioned her, photographed a mugshot, gathered her DNA and took her fingerprints before placing her in a holding cell for seven hours. Ms Scottow was denied the female hygiene products she told police she was in need of.
To ‘misgender’ as Ms Scottow is accused of, is to refer to a transgender-identifying person by the sex he was born, rather than the sex he believes himself to be.
Stephanie Hayden, though male and not registered with a professional legal body, identifies as a woman and a lawyer. As we previously reported, critics claim Mr Hayden routinely uses the legal system to harass those who disagree with his belief in gender identity and perception of himself as a woman. Mr Hayden is credited with bringing the first deadnaming case to court in October 2018 when he filed a complaint against Graham Linehan, creator of TV’s Father Ted.
In addition to addressing Mr Hayden as “he” and “him,” Ms Scottow is accused of calling Mr Hayden a “racist” after he told a black man who challenged him on gender identity ideology that “not so long ago people like you had no civil rights.” Ms Scottow is also alleged to have called Mr Hayden a “pig in a wig.”
While the trial was pending investigation, Ms Scottow was subject to a court order forbidding her to refer to Mr Hayden as a man. She affirmed that she holds a “genuine and reasonable belief” that a human “cannot practically speaking change sex.”
I've just sat through another episode of the witch trials. Kate Scottow on trial for sending 15 tweets over the course of six months, one of which could be described as angry.
Verdict to come Feb 14
— Maya Forstater (@MForstater) February 7, 2020
Calling Ms Scottow’s actions “unkind and abusive,” a St Albans Magistrates’ Court judge convicted her on February 14, 2020 of persistently making use of a public communications network to cause annoyance, inconvenience, and anxiety to Mr Hayden. Ms Scottow was fined £1,000 and made subject of a two-year conditional discharge. Her supporters protested the verdict outside the court, chanting “pig in a wig” and “he’s a man – go on prosecute me.”
On December 9, 2020, Ms Scottow revealed on Twitter that she had successfully appealed her conviction: “Today was my appeal. I no longer have a conviction. […] I’m free.” Mr Hayden, who said he had not been aware of the appeal, complained, “From a personal point of view I’m very disappointed.”
Woman Interrogated for Blog, Tweets About Biological Sex
In February 2019, police serving the village of Suffolk rang Margaret Nelson, a 74-year-old former newspaper journalist and humanist celebrant, to speak to her about her blog posts and Twitter updates on the topic of gender identity ideology.
Ms Nelson has often called for reform of the Gender Recognition Act, which she says can be exploited to harm women’s rights.
The officer who called did not indicate that Ms Nelson had broken a law, but said that “a number of people” had contacted police about her writings on her blog, Dead Interesting, and her Twitter account @flashmaggie.
The officer suggested Ms Nelson “tone down” her blog posts and tweets and remove content that “could have upset or offended transgender people,” Ms Nelson told the Spectator.
Ms Nelson informed the policewoman that she would not delete her posts or tweets. “She accepted that, and that was the end of the conversation,” Ms Nelson said.
Comments that the policewoman indicated might have “upset or offended transgender people” include Ms Nelson’s factual explanation on the manner in which forensic pathologists determine the sex of a deceased person:
If a transgender person’s body was dissected, either for medical education or a post-mortem examination, his or her sex would also be obvious to a student or pathologist. Not the sex that he or she chose to present as, but his or her natal sex; the sex that he or she was born with. Even when a body has been buried for a very long time, so that there is no soft tissue left, only bone, it is still possible to identify the sex. DNA and characteristics such as the shape of the pelvis will be clear proof of the sex of the corpse.
Another reportedly “offensive” post was Ms Nelson’s blunt denouncement of gender identity ideology as make-believe:
Gender’s fashionable nonsense. Sex is real. I’ve no reason to feel ashamed of stating the truth. The bloody annoying ones are those who use words like ‘cis’ or ‘terf’ and other BS, and relegate biological women to a ‘subset’. Sorry you believe the mythology.
Subjected to public critique for their actions, Suffolk Police later apologized to Ms Nelson for their botched handling of the complaints. “We accept we made a misjudgment in following up the complaint. As a result of this, we will be reviewing our procedures for dealing with such matters. We are sorry for any distress we may have caused. […]”
Police interrogation of private citizens who express lack of faith in gender identity theory seems to have become a trend in the United Kingdom of late.
In January 2018, Humberside Police called business owner Harry Miller at work and interrogated him for 34 minutes. Despite acknowledging that Mr Miller had done nothing illegal, an officer wrote up Mr Miller for a “hate incident,” because Mr Miller had posted, reshared and expressed agreement with such tweets as “trans women are not women” on Twitter.
The officer who called lectured Mr Miller to “check his thinking,” professing, “Sometimes, a woman’s brain grows a man’s body in the womb, and that is what transgender is.”
UPDATE 18:34:24 UTC Saturday, February 15, 2020: Kate Scottow found guilty
UPDATE 23:45:01 UTC Tuesday, December 15, 2020: Kate Scottow successfully appealed
Read more on this story
The Mail
Mum thrown in cell for 7 HOURS – for calling trans woman a man
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.
Ipswich News
Apology for blogger whose gender comments led to call from police
The constabulary became involved in row over freedom of speech and accusations of transphobia after asking Margaret Nelson to “tone down” her web posts.
The Spectator
Why are the police stopping a 74-year-old tweeting about transgenderism?
Margaret Nelson is a 74-year-old woman who lives in a village in Suffolk.
One more article to print and put in our 3-ring binders to show to our elected officials and others offline, to create an offline community of resistance and support for questioning transgenderism where we live.
Here’s another article for your binder, if you haven’t seen it yet…. https://4w.pub/maddison-elementary-school-teacher-fights-for-right-to-use-student-girls-bathroom/?fbclid=IwAR0fKGcm94ak2lQmuaWeaUNPn_4MHY1ccDEqQ2bSLvrlePIgyPx5watUgvQ
Ew! That creep should never have been allowed to encroach on those female students privacy. I fully intend to email all the relevant authorities about it before this Monday (23rd March 2020). If it were not for the coronavirus I would have set up a petition. It’s literally the most outrageous thing I’ve ever seen proponents of Queer Theory/trans ideology achieve on this, or any other website.
Lless of the “elderly”! 😂
I removed the “elderly,” although you likely were commenting in jest. I think the description enhanced the public’s sympathy. 🙂 Most people especially hate to see older women, mothers and small children unjustly terrorized, I believe. But we respect you and want you to be happy with the article supporting you. We never thought at the time that you and Kate Scottow would read this and follow us.
I think this is a little misleading as Kate Scottow wasnt “tossed in jail”. She was detained in a cell at the police station pending questionning. It was several hours which seems excessive given the alleged crime was being a bit mean on the internet.
She was convicted at court of harrassment iirrc but its just been overturned at appeal. She at no point went to jail.
I wrote this from the US, as my bio below the article states. In the US, being put in a holding cell is jail, and if there is a conviction, you are put in prison.
I am uncertain whether this is a language barrier, or you are trolling me by assuming I set out to be “misleading.” I gave you the benefit of the doubt, unlike what you gave me.
I work hard to keep up with global news on this movement while working full-time and studying, and it’s a rather nasty thing when the only comment of some who purport to be on the same side is to try to publicly discredit my efforts by seeking out wording, a caption or headline they can criticize.
Ive written out a reply twice and its glitched and deleted both times so this is a very trimmed down version.
In Uk jail and prison are synonymous. Being arrested and detained by the police in a cell pending questioning is standard procedure. So “jailed” read as purposeful hyperbole for emotive effect and inaccurate hence my objection.
https://www.gov.uk/arrested-your-rights/how-long-you-can-be-held-in-custody
I have relied on Women are Human as a valuable resource to link to which reports more comprehensively, dispassionately and neutrally than the tabloids from which stories are gleaned. So I was most perturbed to find it seemed to be compromised. I thank you for your efforts.
Im sorry that you were upset by my criticism – i didnt seek this article out I saw it posted in a group where the reaction was similar to mine. I think outside of the US the phrasing “jailed” is liable to confuse and that “held in a police cell for several hours” would be clearer.
The real travesty i think is that Kate was arrested in the first place. It is more usual for minor offences for the police to invite a suspect in for an interview at a pre arranged time. That she was arrested in front of her kids and detained for hours seems hugely excessive for being a bit mean to someone on Twitter.
Her conviction has recently been overturned. The details of the case are here. It seems the original conviction had irregularities and it is not a crime to be unkind about someone as the original judge hinted was the case. Kates right to free speech was breached.
https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/haydens-latest-debacle
My use of ‘jail’ for someone arrested and held in custody was done reflexively based on the language I’m accustomed to. I didn’t recall my prior observation that ‘jail’ and ‘prison’ are synonyms in the UK until I read your initial comment. I make some modifications for UK stories, such as the way I write dates, and I’m fine with changing the wording here if it causes confusion to readers in the country in which the story is based.
However, this could have been quickly and easily cleared up if you had sent an email through the contact page or private message via social media to ask. Feeling one’s best efforts are never enough for the same side is disheartening, whereas receiving expected mockery and threats of violence or murder from transactivists has become routine. It’s allies who most gleefully make public note here or on Facebook of the rare typo, grammatical or other error made while I’m tired and busy with over 220 drafts perpetually pending, as if they would be perfect juggling, sometimes manually translating stories, while never mislabeling an object in any caption (as I once did, “tampon” for “pad”), never using a phonetically similar word when they know the right one, never completely misspelling words they know well how to spell (I caught yesterday that I had previously written “embrawled” in an article I was updating), and know and recall every lingual and cultural nuance. I’m just as limited as any human. People need to be gracious, and perhaps ask how they can help. It’s the allies riding me hard and not helping that will cause me to give up or burn out. There is a human at this end, not a bot.
I am from the US and this is also how I understand the difference between jail and prison.
Jail is used more colloquially (as in jailed for public intoxication and released the next morning) meaning locally detained in a cell, held for a light infraction usually without a trial or while awaiting court dates. This is exactly what happened to Scottow.
Prison has the extra meaning that the person has been tried and convicted and is serving a sentence usually at a non-local state or federal facility.
There was no reason for Fiona to jump to conclusions about you being ‘kompromat’. I am having a hard time believing that jail and prison are as synonymous in the UK as she states, seeing as though our justice systems are fairly similar.
This might necessitate a re-watch of Hot Fuzz to see what terms the British police use. XD
In the US, jail and prison have different formal meanings, but most everyday people don’t know there is a difference and use them interchangeably.
In the UK, you’ll see even news sources say “jailed” for people who have been or can be in prison for years or decades (for example, Karen White, the transgender-identifying prisoner who sexually assaulted women while in women’s prison is described as “jailed for life” by BBC, Times, the Guardian). I realized they don’t formally distinguish, but overlooked while writing. This link says “jail” isn’t used in the UK in the same sense.
https://www.diffen.com/difference/Jail_vs_Prison