Protected characteristics exist because words cause harm
Dr Helen Webberley on Robby Starbuck: transition and children, Robby Starbuck
Free speech means you can say whatever you want about any group, and calling that harmful is just censorship. Protected characteristics are a political invention, not a response to anything real.
In the UK, gender reassignment is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, and that protection exists for a reason: because we know that sustained, amplified hostility towards a minority group causes real harm. Not theoretical harm. Pain, suffering, discrimination, violence. Nobody is saying you cannot hold a view. What the law recognises is that using a platform to broadcast that view loudly, and to encourage others to share it, is a different thing entirely. That is when a private opinion becomes a public harm, and that is exactly what the law was written to address.
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