Autistic Teen Found Guilty of 'Hate Crime' for Asking Police Officer's Sex; Autism Group Condemns Prosecution | Women Are Human

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[–]SanityIsGC 16 insightful - 1 fun16 insightful - 0 fun17 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Following comment from mumsnet is bang on

"Imagine how empty the streets would be after 9pm if they imposed a curfew on young men who shout the far far far worse stuff at young girls and women every single day.

But street harassment of women is, apparently, not a hate crime".

[–]BEB 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

After 9 PM? What paradise does that mumsnet poster live in? /s

When I was young (and by "young" I mean < 55) I was harassed on the street from morning till...

I still get men commenting on my body at the gym. So to all you women who are thinking you become invisible at a certain age, I haven't hit that age yet and I'm old.

[–]SanityIsGC 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

9 p.m. refers to the curfew that was imposed on the teen. The mumsnet poster is commenting on the fact that males in the UK can harass women and girls without any punishment whatsoever.

[–]BEB 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for clarifying.

[–]anonymale 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Autistics are excellent bullshit detectors.

The inability to maintain hidden agendas enables autistic people to develop and maintain trusted relationships and very effective long term collaborations, but this ability is crippled in psychologically unsafe environments, and it makes autistic people dangerous from the perspective of anyone who is seeking to maintain and enhance their social status...

It looks like North Wales police have decided to sacrifice one member of a minority to appear inclusive of another. Grimly ironic since Freel is a diversity & inclusion poster-child for the force.

I’ve always felt that if I ever need a police officer and a trans officer appears, I am going to be frightened of what might come out of my mouth. Or that the officer might take offence at my unusual eye contact. Or that they will interpret my speech and body language as prejudiced, and a free ride to the police station will result. This case reinforces my previous conclusion: don’t call police. Just what black people have to deal with every day, but now reinforced by a police force wanting to look woke.

This local news report on the court case says that Freel had known of the defendant for 12 years (denied by Armstrong). If they knew each other he would have seen Freel transitioning. Maybe Armstrong has always had in his head the question he shouted about Freel, and being autistic was unable to suppress it. When something’s bothering us, autistic people may need to think out loud, possibly repetitively. We might do this at high volume, since it’s possible we don’t have fine control over our voices or give a shit about what other people think is appropriate for the situation.

[–]yishengqingwa666 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This only further confirms to me that I have some kind of mild autism. Shit.

[–]anonymale 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

The current thinking is that autistic traits are distributed in the general population. Not everyone who has autistic traits is autistic: we're at one end of the distribution. Diagnosis is down to clinical judgement. This is not the same as saying that we’re all somewhere on the autism spectrum, because a spectrum is not a gradient.

Please avoid functioning labels like ‘mild’ if you don’t want to annoy autistics. They have no clinical utility, only reflecting neurotypicals’ opinion of how closely an autistic can imitate neurotypical behaviour. They are an excuse to ignore ‘severely’ autistic people’s abilities and ‘mildly’ autistic people’s needs.

Why would it be a bad thing if you are autistic? Hannah Gadsby is and she’s fucking awesome. [edit: not since she took sides against JKR]

[–]anonymale 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Long Mumsnet thread pointing out that delicate cupcakes are not likely to succeed in policing, that women deal with far worse abuse every day, that this happened in the context of an all-time low count of rape convictions, etc.

[–]SanityIsGC 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wonder what happens to Brits who call police pigs or bastards?

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

So in the UK anyone listening to or singing David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel" within earshot of this copper - or anyone else trans or transitioning, whatever that means nowadays - is liable to be charged with a "hate crime" for "causing offence."

https://youtu.be/U16Xg_rQZkA

[–]IridescentAnaconda 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Connor Freel was “upset and embarrassed” by the youth’s question, and is now reluctant to go on foot patrols alone.

This snowflake is a police officer?

[–]anonymale 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Not quite. PCSO stands for police community support officer. It's a policing support role. They don't have a police constable's power of arrest but are required to act to the same standards as one. Their work includes visible foot patrols, following up crime reports, gathering intelligence, preserving crime scenes, etc.

My sister, now a police officer, was a PCSO for years. She told me that people would do all kinds of stupid shit in plain sight of her because they thought, wrongly, that she was not allowed to touch them, and "she's a woman, what's she going to do?". She did an awful lot of scene-preservation work after a terrorist attack. This consisted of standing for entire shifts in full kit with stab-vest under the summer sun next to a road-closed sign, and every ten minutes or so having to stop some dimwit from driving past it.

Towards the end of her time as a PCSO she trained and assessed recruits. She failed one for having the observational powers of a potato. The recruit accused her of racism. She was reassessed swiftly by someone else and passed. A few months later her complaint against my sister was found to be groundless. Next time we talk I'll ask her what she thinks of this case but I imagine I will be able to hear her eyes rolling over the phone. I am so proud of her.