Is Misgendering a Hate Crime? | Good Morning Britain

normally I'm gonna say you're not one of the people that goes you know this is all that rages you're all horrible to not be very fair-minded all the many transgender issues which have come up in the last year or so on this one you're emphatic though you believe this is the misgendering a transgender person is a hate crime why absolutely well gender is a protected characteristic just as much as race religion or sexuality and if somebody took a swipe at any of those there would be a similar reaction and to a transgender person their identity is what they fought for every day you go out in the world and you have to justify yourself in some way and I'll give you this example yes it does seem innocuous I've been listening this morning about you know accidentally calling somebody he or she which to most people it's irrelevant you just brush it off but if I give you this quick analogy if I left a banana say on your doorstep piers you'd wake up in the morning you think it was a little bit weird but you would think nothing more of him if it was a black family and they woke up and they open the door and found a banana on their doorstep it has a different meaning I agree but Toby if we start prosecuting people for in many cases completely act inadvertently perhaps misgendering somebody Twitter now will suspend your account if you do that even if it's not seemed to be deliberate or malicious where is that taking us well IIIi agree I mean it's one of the difficulties with making misgendering a hate crime is sometimes it can be a complete accident the office for the school's Commissioner last year send a form to schools which included 24 different types of gender are you going to prosecute people for not being able to remember all 24 types some people are gender fluid their gender Smith came out yesterday the singer and he said that he now believes he's male and female born to a biological male movie but now believes he identity self identifies as male and female now this raises all sorts of complexities India not least of which he's accepted a numerous number of awards for male only categories does he continue to accept them should he have the other ones back should he now enter female categories does it depend what mood is in people find it very confusing this and if you call Sam Smith he today and he's identifying today as a female is it a hate crime but if tomorrow he identify as his male because he's gender fluid does it seems to be a hate crime or you know I mean where do you go with this gender fluid I get really confused on it as well all right but I think it's really simple at the end of the day if somebody identifies as whatever it's a matter for them we're talking about one letter here and s either the it's a she or a he is it such a big deal if somebody asks yeah on a particular day to be addressed in that way you go there I think a lot of people accept that yeah what they are struggling with is easy to crime mmm is it a crime if actually you use the wrong pronoun and even if you do it because you're confused about gender fluidity you're confused about transitioning is it a crime that needs investigating by the police well it's not a crime if it's accidental which does happen and transgender people are aware that that can't the difficulty here is the police were expected to decide whether it's accidental or not no no no police interviewed 3300 people for saying we're talking here about tweets and social media posts I don't know about you Toby but certainly when I do a tweet I think it through and then I type it and then it goes on there should be interviewing nearly 10 people every day one of detaining and questioning them for things they've said which are supposedly offensive on Twitter when they could be investigating burglary theft nobody's eyes something like knife crime is a priority and you could put every police officer in the country devoted to looking at night knife crime at the moment but there would still be other crimes but what about this so in the paper today a transgender woman called Katie Yeomans is demanding two and a half thousand pounds compensation because rail staff called her certain apparently she's six foot tall has short hair doesn't wear makeup so I would imagine it's a reasonably see mistake for rail staff to make and they're trying to be polite by saying sir or madam depending on how they identify I don't know that we don't know the contact we don't hang wise that's day if it is that context how can that be a matter for compensation I mean it's just it's just a mistake isn't it but is it a mistake if it's happening once I'm sure that the lady will accept that it's an error and somebody slipped up but if if it's repeated then it's probably not I mean the case you're referring to earlier on the two individuals and Susie Greene who I actually know the amount of abuse she gets for running a transgender charity is insane she gets trolled every time they don't I would say to that into this I would say that I for example completely support people who transgender I think I've always shown you absolutely perfect right and I would I would absolutely do that to anybody where I think the transgender community does itself a disservice is where they become too aggressive in asserting this kind of thing to the point where it involves the police and people being arrested and so on I think it has the opposite effect of what they hope when they do that it doesn't help the cause it damages the cause it makes everyone who's not saying what is going on here is a serious issue for us and as I say it's just the same as giving a slur out to in a racial context to a black person or an Asian person or about with somebody's sexuality and I would say to use it if you think it's so easy spend a month living as the opposite sex and see how you I don't think it's not a daily basis you would get questioned view is this India raises an interesting point I mean if you use the n-word against a black person in this country if I did it on air now I'd be fired quite rightly right it would be deemed grotesquely offensive right and and a form of hate crime right actually if it causes the same hurt to a transgender person to say deliberately misgender in other words you know that you're going to hurt them and you still do it right if you do that what is the difference actually I think the difference is this peers that when you use the n-word when you call a gay person by the f-word when you call a woman the B word there's no disputing that that is evidence of prejudice of bigotry but it could be that deliberately but nonetheless for perfectly respectable and illegitimate political philosophical or theological reasons your point of view is that someone who is born a woman can't then become a man and vice versa yeah I also want to interject because in order to be protected from gender-reassignment discrimination you do not need to have undergone any specific treatment or surgery to change from your birth sex to preferred gender so you simply need to identify as a different raises the you know that it becomes 70 different seventy different ways to self-identify she's crazy legenda some of which are things like two-spirit person now if I don't call that person two-spirit am i guilty of a hey my question was going to be okay but and what happens if you want to simply discuss the facts that you don't agree with the fact that somebody might identify as something different on a particular day yeah is that then put you into legal hot water well the police seem uncertain about this they they they for instance they contacted a 74 year old grandmother early this year she hadn't misgendered anyone she hadn't said anything which anyone was strictly true again had written I don't think trans women are women she got a telephone call from the police telling her to stop blogging about transgender issues now the police shouldn't be doing that that is that's the policing of thought crime which is not the business of the police and not the business of the state if someone takes that point of view I mean it's not my point of view and and I certainly wouldn't miss gender anyone the plea right should be it should be intervening to try and stop people from ecstasy I would argue India when we have a situation in the Midlands at the moment at various schools where Muslim communities have stopped any form of gay sex education being discussed at school because they say they don't believe in homosexuality now that's happening in this country and I'm not seeing the police racing down and interviewing people under caution for what the maybe should see over bigotry so there's a double standard there too we have Caroline here who who misgendered somebody and is a subject of police investigation but you have Muslims in the Midlands who are very anti-gay people refusing and campaigning and protesting successfully to have gay education removed from schools because they don't like it and that isn't that bigotry I mean well the police are wrong in that instance but when you're saying that caroline has misgendered you're missing a word out repeatedly this is an accident like this is the crux of the matter here everyone accepts that mistakes can happen but if you troll somebody I mean we're in a week here I don't think mental health is really really relevant it's hit the headlines you know people die Caroline believe that because the the transgender girl concerned this other woman's daughter had not had any surgery to transition she was questioning whether she was actually a girl by any technical description or not simply because she'd held her hand up and said I'm now what business is it piers courage to say that she can't think no but if I said to you Toby I think that from now on you need to be okay find as whatever it's none of my business it's a different view for religious really it's a complicated issue it's an interesting debate to have thank you both for coming in we appreciate it you

Channel: Good Morning Britain

Views: 308,186

Keywords: good morning britain, breakfast show, news, morning news, gmb, good morning britain interview, itv, piers morgan, susanna reid, Talk Shows - Topic, hate crime, india willoughby, gmb debate, trans rights, good morning britain debate, caroline farrow, caroline farrow journalist, susie green, india willoughby transgender, transgender, toby young, transgender hate crime

Id: ATeJlv62nig

Length: 11min 6sec (666 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2019