Hva har skjedd med et samfunn, når det å le av en transperson medfører en bot på 500 pund? I Storbritannia har man kommet enda lenger i sin iver etter å beskytte transpersoner enn i Norge, men når straffelovens §185 blir endret, kan vi nok vente oss lignende tilstander her.
Lifesite skriver om den utrolige hendelsen:
Graham Spiers, a father of two and a construction worker employed at the St. James construction site, was walking past a pub in Bonnington, Edinburgh, with a few buddies, when they passed a transgender woman—a biological male. Although the journalist writing the story goes to great lengths to make it sound as if Spiers was “screaming” at the apparent victim, Spiers and his friends were specifically accused of “pointing and laughing” at the person.
The man being laughed at suspected that he was being mocked for his appearance, as fiscal depute Rosie Cook told the Edinburgh Sheriff Court that the “complainer thought [the laughing and pointing] was in reference to her gender transition.” The transgender person then did what anyone would do if someone laughed at them: He promptly called the police, who take such things very seriously these days. The Edinburgh News, straining to make it sound as if the beery chuckles of a few construction workers really were a big deal, referred to the incident as an “unprovoked verbal assault on her.”
The sheriff informed Spiers that his sense of humor had “no place in today’s society,” and that his laughing and pointing were so unacceptable that he was required to pay the man he had laughed at five hundred pounds “in compensation” for inferring by his laughter that the man did not look like a woman. The Edinburgh News referred to the incident as a “confrontation” despite the fact that the groups simply walked past each other, and Spiers was actually arrested five days later his misplaced mirth. The lawyer for the transgender complainant stated solemnly that Spiers now understands that his actions had been “disturbing for the complainer.”
