JK Rowling’s publisher invited the transgender activist group Mermaids to review an article in a magazine for A-level law students, which summarised a High Court test case on freedom of expression.

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Management at Hodder Education, part of Hachette UK, referred the article on the ruling to Mermaids, asking it to suggest “examples we can use to counteract the tone and opinions in the piece” and to suggest changes to “anything you feel is untrue, unfair and/or offensive”.

Read article: JK Rowling publisher asked Mermaids trans group to ‘censor’ legal article on free-speech ruling

Fair Cop issues the following Thought Warning to any critical thinkers in the Avon and Somerset region: Don’t speak out loud without first checking the Stonewall Glossary. Because your Assistant Chief Constable is on a mission.

The outrageous policing of political speech by Wiltshire Police

suppose I should consider myself lucky that I have been able to live 50 years without having to think too deeply about what Hannah Arendt meant by the ‘banality of evil’. About how the real danger comes not from the individuals who put into motion schemes of death and destruction, but the ordinary men and women who are daily complicit, in many little ways.

Read article: Why do women matter so little?

Barrister Sarah Phillimore writes about how an enquiry to her local police force revealed an unpleasant surprise about what they had recorded against her name and why she hopes the Supreme Court will declare the Hate Crime Operational Guidance unlawful.

The reach and influence of Stonewall, Mermaids et al. is impressive indeed. But there is another group that has targeted the legal profession. Fair Cop examine the extent to which the legal profession has now been ‘Stonewalled’ with some alarming feedback from one training event for solicitors.

Fair Cop responded to the Scottish Government’s call for views on the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill

When police kit out their patrol cars in rainbow flags or when officers don pride polo shirts, two questions spring to mind: Should the police be doing this? And how much does it cost? Now, we have some answers to the second of these questions.

Read article: Why are police spending thousands on Stonewall subscriptions?

If a man wants to get away with a serious crime, he should commit it while wearing a dress. 

It sounds like the set-up to a misogynist joke from the 1970s, but this is the reality of policing in 21st century Britain. 

Last year a man suffered a serious sexual assault in Bishop’s Stortford. In their initial appeal for witnesses, Hertfordshire Police withheld key information about the suspect that might have led to a quicker arrest, only later revealing that they were seeking a man dressed as a woman.

• Hertfordshire Police fail to mention wanted sex attacker wore women’s clothing
• The force issued a witness appeal following a sex attack in Bishop’s Stortford
• Police did not make the details public until after the man was charged in May