Is the word of a Scottish government minister worth anything? The question arises in the wake of the SNP’s Hate Crime Act which, among much else, creates the offence of ‘stirring up hatred’ against ‘transgender identity’. Feminist groups warned early on that the Bill’s language could see people who don’t believe that men can become women (or vice versa) prosecuted for what had hitherto been treated in law as legitimate expression.
Prominent among these groups was MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (MBM), a policy analysis outfit whose principals boast extensive scholarship and years of experience inside the civil service. One of MBM’s principals, Lucy Hunter Blackburn, gave evidence to the Holyrood justice committee in February 2021 citing the ‘numerous ways in which, and examples of where, accusations of hate and abuse have been directed at women taking part in the debates around sex and gender identity’.
On the same day and before the same committee, the then Scottish government justice secretary Humza Yousaf said
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