Scotland’s controversial new hate crime law comes into force on Monday, introducing updated legislation around transgender identities.

The new Hate Crime Bill, passed in 2021, aims to ensure “bias-motivated crimes will be taken more seriously and will not be tolerated by society”.

Its opponents include author and prominent anti-trans activist JK Rowling. On April 1, Rowling published a series of posts on X questioning the bill.

The Harry Potter author listed several transgender women, from a convicted sex offender to a TV presenter, referring to them all as men.

In her final article, Rowling claimed that women’s issues could not be effectively addressed “unless we are allowed to call men men” and challenged Scottish police to arrest her upon her return.

Rishi Sunak backed the author, arguing that people should not be criminalized for “stating simple biological facts”.

Humza Youssef said he was “very proud” of the new laws and believed they would help prevent an “upsurge” of hatred.

Scotland’s First Minister also said he was “very confident in the ability of Police Scotland to implement this legislation in the way it should be implemented”.

In light of the controversy, here’s everything you need to know about Scotland’s new hate crime laws:

What do Scotland’s new hate crime laws do?

It updates the definition of transgender identity

The new bill changes existing legislation to remove the word “bisexual” from the current definition of transgender status. By separating these terms, it now provides biological sex characteristics and gender identity.

This means there are now two distinct characteristics: “changes in gender characteristics,” which relate to “physical and biological characteristics of the body,” and “transgender identity,” which relates to “a person’s gender identity.”

Under the new bill, a person is a member of a group under the definition of transgender identity if:

It introduces new hate crimes

The 2021 Bill retains the existing “incitement to racial hatred” offense outlined in the Public Order Act 1986.

This makes it an offense to act in a manner that may be considered threatening, abusive or insulting, with the intent to incite hatred against a group on the grounds of race, colour, nationality or ethnic or national origin.

It is also a crime if this is the result of the act but without clear intention.

The 2021 Bill will not replace existing hate crime legislation in Scotland, but will build on it. It has the following characteristics that result in similar incitement to hate crimes:

However, the bill makes it an offense to threaten or abuse (but not insult) someone based on those characteristics, unlike hate crimes based on race.

In practice, this means that the threshold for police to consider actions against trans people (based on their identity) to be hate crimes is much higher.

Is it now a crime to misgender someone?

Scotland’s new law does not make sex discrimination a specific criminal offence. Instead, police will interpret whether a person’s actions constitute a hate crime on a case-by-case basis.

The bill also protects free speech and gives people space to discuss issues surrounding certain characteristics or identities, including transgender identities.

Asked whether it would now be a crime to misgender someone on the internet, Victims and Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said: “That will be a matter for the police to assess what happened. Case.”

“It can be reported, it can be investigated – it’s up to Police Scotland whether the police consider it a crime,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“The threshold under this bill is very high and it is up to Police Scotland to decide what is said online or in person will constitute threats and abuse.”