Published April 10, 2024
The old adage that the pen is mightier than the sword is more reliable when the pen is wielded by someone who has made herself fabulously rich and famous with it.
With a few tweets, Harry Potter authoress J.K. Rowling may have defeated (in her case, at least) the Scottish government’s new hate crime law. The law is vague enough that it was (and still is) unclear whether it is a crime in Scotland to call a man who pretends to be a woman a man. Appropriately, this law went into effect on April 1. Rowling responded to the law with a series of posts highlighting the crimes and misdeeds of various trans-identified individuals, sarcastically writing, for example, that “Lovely Scottish lass and convicted double rapist Isla Bryson found her true authentic female self shortly before she was due to be sentenced.” Rowling concluded with a declaration that “Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal” Finally, “If what I’ve written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested.”
Click here to continue reading.
Nathanael Blake, Ph.D. is a Fellow in the Life and Family Initiative at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. His first book, Victims of the Revolution: How Sexual Liberation Hurts Us All, was published by Ignatius Press in Spring 2025. As a cultural commentator, Dr. Blake has published hundreds of articles at outlets including Public Discourse, World Opinions, The Federalist, Catholic World Report, and the University Bookman.
