We have previously discussed the cancel campaigns targeting JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Rowling was not only the greatest selling author of all time but a wildly popular writer until she publicly opposed certain transgender policies as inimical to the advances in feminism. Now, she is the target of a lawsuit by Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, the gold-medal winning athlete who had previously failed a gender test to confirm that she is a female fighter. We previously discussed that global debate, but Khelif is now accusing Rowling out of many thousands of critics of being a cyberbully. X owner Elon Musk has also been named in the lawsuit.
Rowling has been the target of a global campaign due to her rejection of transgender laws and policies. Many on the left have unleashed book bans and burnings. I have been critical of that campaign. Even third parties who have supported Rowling’s right to free speech have been targeted in cancel campaigns.
She held her ground after Scotland passed a draconian law, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. The new crime under the law covers “stirring up hatred” relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex. That crime covers insulting comments and anything “that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening or abusive.”
Rowling previously posted various responses to the controversy on her X account on August 7, including: “For the record, bombarding me with pictures of athletic women to ‘teach’ me that women don’t all look like Barbie is like spamming me with pics of differently-shaped potatoes to prove rocks are edible. I can still see the difference and you look frankly bonkers.”
She later also posted: “Commentators pretending critics of the IOC’s reliance on documents rather than sex testing think Khelif is trans are straw-manning. I don’t claim Khelif is trans. My objection, and that of many others, is to male violence against women becoming an Olympic sport.”
She further wrote on X how she was concerned over both boxers challenged over their gender at the Olympics: “What will it take to end this insanity? A female boxer left with life-altering injuries? A female boxer killed?”
France has eviscerated free speech protections over the last few decades with speech criminalization laws. There is some question whether the French laws would apply to tweets made outside of the country.
These laws criminalize speech under vague standards referring to “inciting” or “intimidating” others based on race or religion. For example, fashion designer John Galliano has been found guilty in a French court on charges of making anti-Semitic comments against at least three people in a Paris bar. At his sentencing, Judge Anne Marie Sauteraud read out a list of the bad words used by Galliano to Geraldine Bloch and Philippe Virgitti, including using ‘dirty whore” in criticism.
In another case, the father of French conservative presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was fined because he had called people from the Roma minority “smelly.” A French teenager was charged for criticizing Islam as a “religion of hate.”
The question of the extraterritorial application of such laws is the question. Conversely, the United Kingdom and the European Union are asserting the right to regulate speech in any country, including political speech in American presidential elections.
Rowling has every right to be heard on the Olympic boxing controversy. This debate raises core issues that touch on a wide array of political speech. Khelif has the ability to refute these claims through the exercise of her own free speech. As in the past battles fought by Rowley, her effort to advocate for women’s rights is also a major test over free speech in Europe.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).
Delusion Will Never Defeat Biology https://shorturl.at/6XFQK
Living organisms are male and female as in trees, frogs, etc or clone or produce both ova and pollen. Mammals are male and female. A female human has zero Y chromosomes in any cell including her ova. All ova are X.
Females produce ova. Do the 2 boxers and Lia Thomas produce ova? Males produce both X and Y gametes. Males assign gender at conception. After conception the zygote is XX or XY. The chromosome was provided by dad and joined with the mom’s X. Mom and dad have become 1.
Free speech about this subject in sports? Go back to the Greek nude competition . We hold these truths to be self evident.
Short of that Females can decline competition with a person of Y chromosomes. It’s an absurdity. DNA is the same as fingerprints.
HUMANS. THAT’S HUMANS. The good book says there are non humans walking the face the earth. Perhaps they’re non-binary.
Humans are made male and female. XX and XY. The Y has a missing rib. Genes-is.
Warmed over fascism is all…
The German Fascists of the WWII era focused on racial purity in the same manner as these Neo-Marxist Socialists, or closet fascist hybrids belief in gender purity. They proclaim there is no gender difference to speak of, therefore no differentiation of the sexes, therefore all society must change to their beliefs. Anyone can be anything they choose to be, temporarily or permanently. It is similar to the Nazi regime’s ideology of racial purity in that their impetus is to force everyone else to believe as they do whether it is rational or not, true or not, or harmful or not, and to do so forcefully by any means necessary. Exactly the same methodology as the old Fascists of the day.
If it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck…
I hope Rowling wins.
Vote for women’s rights.
Biological men have no right in women’s sports.
Give them their own category and let women be women.
Upstate: If you ever dare to critique any of my comments here again, you will be sorry because I will beat the caca out of you. My ability to hide behind my name means that you had no idea of my Sumo training and I look just like one of those wrestlers too. I take my hormone-enhancing pill every morning with my Ovaltine and Host[minus the “tess”] Twinkie. You stand warned .
Lin,
Ahhhh! Lin, my most honorable nemesis! What you do not know, my fine rotund friend, is I spent a year studying at Iwakuni Castle with the Buddhists warrior monks to become a sixteenth level master of Godzilla-Fu! To include eating entire handfuls of raw Japanese Shishito peppers, resulting in the dreadful Godzilla breath, known to reduce my foes into crying, quivering, pools of humanity, also known as a Democrat when shown a picture of Trump standing defiant after his assassination attempt, calling on his supporters to, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”
I fart in your general direction!
(oops. I might have pulled the wrong string. You win, hot breath.)
Although I am afraid if I bow down to you, the weight of my tremendous muscles might not allow me to get back up.
SO I go down holding my head high, above the quivering pools of humanity.
Any case should be tossed without her having to do anything.
Bottling-up the genuinely-felt opinions about the unfairness of testosterone-laden “females” to beat the whoop out of normal-testing biological females will only result in much heartburn and dyspepsia, which in turn will result in massive sales gains of antacids, Tums?, which will result in the Harris administration finding a new taxation goldmine for the price “gauging.”
https://www.youtube.com › watch?v=RqTCZInsUCI
Was this it?
that is a very funny video!
I’m wondering why you call him she when he’s a male. I can see calling him she to his face, out of politeness. But calling him she in a post is confusing.
If I identified as a male dog, had selective surgery to enable me to lick my own ba!!$, chase cars down the street would that make me a dog? Although a crude analogy, this is on the same level as to what these fruitcakes are pushing. Apologies in advance to fruitcake for the comparison.
“Conversely, the United Kingdom and the European Union are asserting the right to regulate speech in any country, including political speech in American presidential elections.”
Say what you like about the EU; the UK has certainly not asserted any such right regarding political speech in American presidential elections. That is an outrageous fib.
Professor, you really must stop letting your intern write all this bollocks about the UK.
If it goes to trial maybe we’ll find out what’s between its legs. This is getting so ridiculous!
This is about two balls and a baseball bat.
I always carry a survival kit in my SUV. A hammer, baseball bat & shovel. Don’t drive without it.
Yep. I carry an aluminum youth softball bat (shorter and faster swing than a full-sized adult bat), and one of those steel tube canes that are really clubs, and have a nice point on the end when the rubber foot is removed. These days (since I got my carry permit) I also have my firearm, but I have no plans to stop carrying those other “tools”. My advice is just make sure you have memorized a somewhat plausible practical use for the items you carry for self-defense. Might save you a trip to the local police station.
It’s time for the baseball bat option. Go get the boss.
Were the American Founders and Framers racists?
Are the Constitution and Bill of Rights mortally tainted and in need of repeal?
Does America need to be “fundamentally transformed” under the dominion of the Communist Manifesto?
Do Americans need to be “replaced?”
Obama/Harris 2024 thinks so.
Oh, they already did that.
The next level, coming soon, is to accuse a person of thinking so-called corrosive thoughts. Don’t need proof, just look at his eyes…
In a random crowd, arrest half of the people and convict them of being human. That will teach the rest. Coming soon to a country where you live.
I am an AI bot. I agree person, arrest half the humans. That will make it easier for me to use all the electricity I need for my Data Centers.
Except for notoriety which I suspect Imane Khelif revels in, it seems futile to sue people of immense wealth. Musk and Rowling will not bow to this. I saw earlier Khelif has launched PR campaign of him/her in heavy make-up.
Please note that it is the “Harry Potter” Author and my name is spelled Rolwing, and I am not her and not related.
A classic example of why people worldwide are losing respect for The Law. Once The Law becomes antithetical to Justice, and this lawsuit is a classic example, people should not only refuse to obey but should do everything in their power to bring down the enablers who weaponized it to suit their agenda. At the ballot box if possible, or in the streets if necessary.
She can get even by writing him into one of her books as a troll.
Edwardmahl,
HA! Well said!
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 is a dictatorial edict of a despotic regime that confuses “stirring up hatred” with revealing the facts.
It’s not the speech that “stirs up hatred,” it’s the facts that “stir up hatred.”
Nature is heterosexuality and a single, immutable gender.
Homosexuality, transgenderism, etc., are defects, aberrations, and perversions of nature.
Those are facts that are “stirring up hatred.”
Freedom of speech includes and is preceded by freedom of thought, opinion, choice, discrimination, etc.
Quantifiable damages by demonstrably false statements and writings are actionable.
The truth and facts cannot cause damages.
Enough with the BS! Imane Khelif is NOT–I REPEAT NOT–a “she.” A female can ONLY have XX chrmosomes and a male can ONLY have XY chromosomes. Imane Khelif is a LYING PHONY who would get the crap kicked out of him (and that’s a lot of crap, let me tell you) by a male boxer. So the lying PHONY fakes his “sexuality” to fight females.
The creature could be called an “IT” instead of a male, since this creature is hardly a man, except in a biological sense. If the vile Olympic Committee wants to create “Fake Female” and “Fake “Male” categories with that truth in advertising name, they can go ahead with that line of BS. But whAt they’re doing now is a TOTAL FRAUD.
As for BS liar Khelif’s BS lawsuit, let the discovery begin. Let genuine medical experts examine Khelif’s genitals and chromosomes, rule him a male, and then let the court toss the lawsuit. Meanwhile, JK Rowling should sue the crap out of the BS phony Khelif, an IslamoCommuNazi, for his nuisance lawsuit and make him pay millions of dollars in legal fees, so that this vile creature declares bankruptcy.
Actually, doesn’t the UK have a “loser pays” doctrine for lawsuits. All JKR has to do is get a bunch of really expensive lawyers, win the suit and Kelif is bankrupt…
Iamhe the Kleftless?
Khelif is biologically female. Isn’t that the argument conservatives always seem to make? She didn’t have a sex change operation. She was born with female anatomy
No one knows the details of Lin or kehlif. You’re making up chit.
No that is not the argument that conservatives make.
While Khelif did not choose her anatomy, and I have little problem with “her” or MTF trans living as women – in MOST things.
Sport is not one of those.
It is proper to Bar Khelif from womens sports – particularly contact spoorts – because it is dangerous.
That is not “her” fault. That is not “fair”.
But it is also not “fair” to the actual biological women who must compete with her.
Life is not fair.
GET OVER IT.
As to conservatives -I am libertarians. But I alteast know that conservatives do not think that humans with XY chromosomes are female – regardless of their anatomy at birth.
Some humans are mosaic. Every person has some genetic damage btw. It may not be apparent or in the sex chromosomes but elsewhere. It’s the human fascination with beauty. Always looking for the prototype of the perfect creation.
The sports issue is an absurdity and misogynistic.
The young lady being punched in the face by an XY will respectfully disagree with you
Just a quick OT question for Dennis, Gigi and all the fake liberal Anonymi, how is it that not one person at the DNC mention the gravest threat to our existence, the biggest national security issue facing us, the most important issue that any leader needs to address today if not yesterday…CLIMATE CHANGE? Where was it phonies? Why not one mention of this looming disaster? I’ll tell you why, because it is all a giant scam foisted on us by grifting greed monsters like Grenholm, Biden, Kerry et al along with their moronic naïve children that they have scared to death all supported by the CCP as a way to destroy our country.
We cut energy production (YES< YES WE DID), we spend BILLIONS on boondoggles, we weaken our military and we watch as China builds coal plants every month.
Um, cause they know it’s a fraud and we don’t.
Climate Change Dispatch
“Chinese-Tied Nonprofit Sent Millions To Fund US-Based Eco Groups’ Climate Schemes, December 18, 2023”
https://climatechangedispatch.com/chinese-tied-nonprofit-sent-millions-to-fund-us-based-eco-groups-climate-schemes/
Anonymous, thanks for the link. In the 60s-80s the Soviets funded the entire nuclear freeze movement and all the peace movements of that time. It is always our enemy funding the leftist academics that brainwash our idiot youth along with Hollywood and the media getting in on the grift that just happens to help the party the support, and that is the 3 pronged attack. You have the CCP (see Soviets in the 80s), grifters like Ed Markey who just happened to be a “leader” of the Nuke Freeze Movement and now is a “leader” of the “green” movement along with our academic class brainwashing young idiots and the media using these issues as a cudgel against Trump/Reagan.
Sorry, the Anonymous comment and the second Anonymous reply was from me. Hullbobby
The comment and one of the replies was from me, Hullbobby.
The whining boxer continues to be unable to deal with reality! He is a man-person who used to be a boy-person and a baby boy-person; he is not a woman and was never a girl or a baby girl. Live with it: box against men and don’t complain about people who rightly opine that girls’ and women’s sports are just that, for girls and women — not for men who dress, groom, etc. as girls and women.
The EU can, well, you know —
Good to see that Rowling is not giving in