Labour to jail people who use wrong gender pronouns under hate crime law

A person who purposely calls someone by the wrong gender pronoun could be jailed for a hate crime under a Labour government.

The opposition would make attacks motivated by hatred of the victim's gender identity into “'aggravated offences”.

This would bring so called transphobic abuse into line with assault and harassment motivated by hatred on the grounds of race or religion, which are punishable by up to two years in prison.

Last year a Christian preacher was convicted of harassing a transgender woman by calling her a “man” and a “gentleman”.

David McConnell was given a 12-month community order for leaving Farrah Munir “emotionally distraught” after an argument between the two while he was preaching on a street in Leeds.

His conviction was quashed after magistrates ruled there was no evidence it was intentional.