MARION Millar, the Scottish feminist campaigner charged with a hate crime, has received support from around the world ahead of her first court appearance.
The 50-year-old accountant from Airdrie, who faces two years in jail if convicted, has been sent messages from Canada, Spain, Italy, France, Finland and Japan, as well from all parts of the UK.
A women-only group in America’s Washington state sent a video message of themselves chanting Ms Millar’s online rallying cry “Women Won’t Wheesht”.
The Sovereign Women Speak group said: “This is for Marion. We know you that are going through a very difficult time right now.
“We understand that you have been charged with a hate crime, for the crime of speaking out on behalf of women and girls in Scotland. This is for you.”
Ms Millar, who is being represented by the SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, will have her initial bail hearing at Glasgow Sheriff Court today.
The appearence was initally set for July 20, then delayed by prosecutors to August 17, before being delayed by the Crown Office again to August 31.
For Marion Millar from the women of Sovereign Women Speak. Sunday August 22,2021 Washington State USA#SovereignWomenSpeak#WomenWontWheesht #WeStandWithMarion pic.twitter.com/tGdWbNol5J
— Sovereign Women Speak (@Sovereign_Women) August 29, 2021
Ms Millar, a mother of autistic twin boys, has been accused of posting allegedly homophobic and transphobic material on social media in 2019 and 2020, including a tweet showing a ribbon on the purple, white and green of the suffragette movement.
She has charged on June 3 under Section 127 of the 2003 Communications Act, which criminalises “grossly offensive” messages, with a “hate crime aggravator”.
A supporter of sex-based rights for women who opposes transgender self-identification, she is seen by her critics as a trans-exclusionary radical feminist, or Terf.
Last week, Ms Milllar was asked to leave an Edinburgh pub after a transgender employee complained about her being in Doctors on Forrest Road with fellow activists. campaigners.
The Greene King pub chain later launched an investigation into the incident.
Ms Cherry, who shares some of Ms Millar’s views on gender recognition, is due to lead her defence tomorrow with advocate Paul Harvey as her junior counsel.
It is understood the defence will involve human rights issues.
Ms Millar’s supporters, including the TV comedy writer Graham Linehan, are expected to support her in person tomorrow.
The For Women Scotland group, which also supports Ms Millar, is also planning a demonstration outside Holyrood on Thursday against plans to reform gender recognition law to make it quicker and simpler for people to obtain a gender recognition certificate.
Ms Millar’s case has already attracted international attention on free speech grounds.
The American legal analyst Jonathan Turley, Shapiro Chair of Public interest Law at George Washington University, has called it part of a “free speech fight brewing in Scotland”.
Gender-critical feminists such as Ms Millar disagree with those LGBT activists who think gender identity should be prioritised over biological sex in government policy and the law.
The former fear the advance of transgender rights is at the expense of hard-won women’s rights, while the latter see the focus on biological sex as transphobic.
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