Police ‘targeted Rowling with parody’ at LGBT event

POLICE SCOTLAND has been accused of targeting the author JK Rowling by inventing a fictional character called “Jo” who thinks that sex is binary and calls for transgender people to be sent to gas chambers.

At a Police Scotland hate crime event, attendees were presented with a “scenario” in which “Jo” is described as a passionate gender-critical campaigner who, like Rowling, believes people cannot change sex and has a large social media following. Women’s groups claimed the character was a parody of the Harry Potter creator whose Christian name is Joanne and is called Jo by her friends and that it has fuelled conspiracies that there is a link between gender-critical beliefs and Nazism.

The “youth engagement” event, held in February, was part of a programme of events organised by Police Scotland for LGBT history month.

Ahead of new hate crime laws coming into force in Scotland on April 1, other sessions were given to police officers in which concerns about male-bodied people having access to women’s facilities were mocked and described as “completely ludicrous”. Meanwhile, the SNP’S proposals for a ban on conversion therapy were presented as being part of continuing work to “achieve equal rights for all” and were likened to the decriminalisation of homosexuality.

The hate crime event, which was supported by Police Scotland and jointly organised by the Scottish LGBTI Police Association and the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign group, invited attendees to consider the case of “Jo”.

She is described as an “online influencer” who is “very active” on social media, with a “large following”. Rowling is active on X, formerly Twitter, and has 14 million followers.

The fictional scenario states that Jo “travels around university campuses” to “debate her beliefs about the LGBTI community”. It states that she “often gets very passionate about her beliefs and will say things like ‘there are only two genders’” and “too many attention-seeking wannabes”. While Rowling is an author, she regularly expresses similar sentiments on social media.

The scenario concludes by stating “Jo posted her most recent video with the caption ‘they all belong in the gas chambers’”. Attendees were then asked to discuss whether a hate crime had been committed by Jo and “what action do you think the police should take”.

Marion Calder, a director at For Women Scotland, said the materials were “clearly trying to create a link with JK Rowling” and that it was “deeply concerning” to see “Jo” leap from “reasonable statements” to the Holocaust.

Trans activists often claim there is a link between the gender-critical movement and far-right ideology, and compare those who do not accept that trans women are women with racists.

“This suggests that gender-critical women with a high profile endorse a mass extinction, which is frankly bonkers, and sends a message to police that perfectly sane women have been radicalised,” Ms Calder said.

“These woke training sessions given by activists present highly contested statements as fact and would leave officers tasked with enforcing hate crime legislation with a warped view of the issues.”

Police Scotland admitted that “stakeholders” helped shape training for the hate crime law, but these were separate to LGBT History month events. It was unclear who these stakeholders were.