With Irish hate laws you can’t be arrested for accidental misgendering – Australian Associated Press

AAP FACT CHECK – New hate crime laws in Ireland have led to false claims on social media that you can be arrested for accidentally misgendering someone.

Irish legal experts say the law only applies if there is intent to cause harm or social disruption and does not apply to accidentally referring to someone of the wrong gender.

The false claim is made in a series of Facebook posts sharing similar text. The messages are shared by Australian users.

“Ireland passes law allowing police to arrest citizens who accidentally use wrong pronouns,” the photo captioned one message states.

The message contains a link to an article with that headline from The People’s Voice, a site that AAP Fact Check has debunked several times.

The article continues: “The Irish parliament passed a new law on Wednesday allowing police to arrest citizens who misgender others – even if it is an accident.”

The law referred to in the article is that of Ireland Criminal Justice (Hate Crimes) Bill 2022that passed by the Dail Eireannor the Irish House of Commons, on October 23.

Irish legal experts said this AAP Fact Check the new law could not be used to prosecute people who accidentally mistreated someone.

Luke Noonanlaw lecturer and co-director of the Irish Legal Information Initiative, said the legislation increases penalties for existing crimes motivated by hatred in relation to a protected characteristic, such as race or gender.

But, Dr Noonan said, accidentally mistreating someone is not an offense under Irish law.

He said the law sets the threshold for a hate crime as one that requires intent “to provoke a breach of the peace, or recklessness as to whether a breach of the peace is likely to be caused.”

“Accidentally misnaming someone would not reach this threshold,” he said.

Fiona Donsona human rights expert from University College Cork, explained that the law establishes gender as a protected category, but this has been twisted by critics to suggest that anyone who accidentally mistreats another person can be arrested.

Dr. Donson said any claim suggesting that Irish police could use this law to arrest people for unintentionally using someone’s incorrect gender is “a complete misrepresentation of the law”.

The article in the post also refers to the case of former Irish teacher Enoch Burke, whose arrest was the subject misleading claims debunked by AAP Fact Check.

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