UK: Police interrogate elderly woman over alleged support for women

British police last week interrogated an elderly West Yorkshire woman for a “hate crime” after she snapped a photo of a sign expressing support for women.

The 73-year-old taxpayer used her phone to photograph a sign which read, “Stand by your trans” on which someone had placed a sticker reading, “Keep males out of women-only spaces.” The sticker referred to widespread policies allowing men posing as women to enter women’s bathrooms, changing rooms, jails and sports teams.

Though she did not share the photo on social media, a CCTV surveillance camera caught her taking the photo. Days later two West Yorkshire Police officers called on her at home claiming they were investigating the action as a hate crime and then tried to re-educate the woman.

“They gave me a long lecture about the sensitivity of the issue, and how something like this could cause harassment and alarm to the community,” said the taxpayer, who is keeping her identity private for fear of reprisal from gender operatives. “They were investigating it as a hate crime, which is outrageous. I was in a state of shock.”

“I think they wanted to correct my thinking," she added to the Daily Mail. “They are getting involved in a very divided and toxic debate, but it's not their role to arbitrate political disagreements. I felt as if they were trying to gag a dissenting voice by harassing me in my own home.”

West Yorkshire Police claim “[w]ords of advice were given regarding the placing of the sticker, as it was reported to have caused offence.”

The incident comes just weeks after Leeds police violently arrested an autistic child for remarking that she thought a policewoman looked like a “lesbian.” The 16-year-old, who has scoliosis, was held in custody for 20 hours before being released.

UK law defines a “homophobic, biphobic and transphobic crime” as:

Any incident/crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person because of their sexual orientation or transgender identity or perceived sexual orientation or transgender identity by the victim or any other person.

The law has been applied liberally by authorities who continue to arrest citizens for speaking out against totalitarian gender ideology.

Surrey Police, for example, are attempting to assign a probation officer to a journalist accused of “misgendering” and monitor all her communications. 

Caroline Farrow, a journalist and mother of five, was the subject of a five-month-long police investigation in 2019 for opinions she expressed on social media regarding gender disorientation. According to Farrow, her chief crime was “misgendering” — referring to someone by their actual gender and not the gender they claim to be.

Last year, Farrow was also arrested in her home for “malicious communications and harassment” while she was making dinner for her children. Photos provided by Farrow show police forcing their way into her house. When she asked to see a warrant, they replied, “We don’t need one.” Police seized several electronic devices, including from her husband’s parish next door. They then brought Farrow outside where a female officer subjected her to a body search and took her to the station.

In December, UK Metropolitan Police summoned James Goddard to a meeting due to a social media post which offended rainbow flags.

In July 2022, a decorated British war veteran was arrested for “malicious communications” after police received a complaint about one of his social media posts. The offending post showed a swastika made of rainbow flags, a commentary on the state-sponsored intimidation of citizens to embrace same-sex attraction and gender disorientation.