JK Rowling has challenged Scotland's new hate crime law in a series of social media posts - inviting police to arrest her if they believe she has committed an offence.
The Harry Potter author, who lives in Edinburgh, described several transgender women as men, including convicted prisoners, trans activists and other public figures.
She said "freedom of speech and belief" was at an end if accurate description of biological sex was outlawed.
Earlier, Scotland's first minister Humza Yousaf said the new law would deal with a "rising tide of hatred".
The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 creates a new crime of "stirring up hatred" relating to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being intersex.
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Ms Rowling, who has long been a critic of some trans activism, posted on X on the day the new legislation came into force.
ANYBODY can have a twitter, youtube, tiktok, etc account and immediately have access to a platform where they can potentially speak to thousands of people,
That is a bit trivializing. Not everybody is able to build a following, you need to bring something to the table for people to watch you. Given it can be just being somehow entertaining like tate. But it's not like every bigot gets automatically Rowling's reach, she had to write a rather popular children book for it.
and some of them are pretty impressionable
That is the core question to what degree is someone responsible for actions others created by their words. There are obvious clear cases but I think the law gets rather unclear with "or where it is a likely consequence that hatred will be stirred up against such a group." (Part 2, Section 3. 32). That's rather broad and unclear in my opinion.