On Friday 22nd March I appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme AntiSocial which is broadcast live at from 12:04 until 12:56. It is also available as podcast. The topic was Misgendering and Hate Crime because on 1st April a law which was given the Royal Assent nearly three years ago will come into effect. The law is the Hate Crime and Public Order Act (Scotland) 2021. You can listen to the programme here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001xfw6

Essentially the new law (in Scotland) establishes that a person commits an offence if they behave in a manner that a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting, or stirs up hatred against a group of persons based on the group being defined by age, disability, religion race, colour, nationality (including citizenship), or ethnic or national origin, sexual orientation, transgender identity, or variations in sex characteristics (previously known as intersex). Details of the Act can be read here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2021/14/contents

I was not contacted until Thursday afternoon to enquire if I would appear on the programme. They apologised for the short notice, so I suspect they had tried several people before me. After the broadcast I was thanked for participating and told that they found it difficult to get trans people to become involved. I wondered why - until I checked my Twitter/X account. I have received hundreds of messages  from people who clearly think that it is contrary to their human rights to be prevented from stirring up hatred against trans people. Fortunately friends have gone some way to redressing the balance with positive comments. Even my son , who didn't know I was going to be on said, "I don't know if you have listened to many other episodes of that programme, but you did better than most." Praise indeed!