Scottish Government consultation to add women and girls as protected characteristic under hate crime bill begins

A consultation on the Scottish Government’s draft regulations, which add women and girls as a protected characteristic under the hate crime bill, has begun.

The Hate Crime and Public Order Act was introduced in April 2024 and took the law against the stirring up of racial hatred and extended that protection to other groups.

Those characteristics included disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics.

However, women and girls were not initially included under the new act.

The Scottish Government had planned to introduce a separate Misogyny Bill, creating a new offence of issuing threats of, or invoking, rape or sexual assault or disfigurement of women and girls online and offline.

But, they backtracked on this in May 2025, stating that there was “insufficient time for a Bill to be finalised.”

On Thursday, the Government published draft regulations which would make it a criminal offence to stir up hatred against women and girls, as well as men and boys, because of their sex.

The draft regulation includes a definition of sex as meaning “biological sex”, with a note published alongside the regulations stating the definition was prompted by the judgment of the UK Supreme Court earlier this year against Scottish ministers, which defined sex as biological sex in the Equality Act 2010.

A consultation has opened regarding the proposals. It will close on October 10.

Justice secretary Angela Constance said the Government wants to send a “strong message to victims, perpetrators, communities and wider society that offences motivated by prejudice and hatred against women and girls will not be tolerated”.

She added: “Adding the characteristic of sex to the Hate Crime Act will ensure that women and girls have the same protections as victims who are targeted because of a specific characteristic, such as age, religion or disability.

“Men and boys will also be protected, however, we know that women and girls suffer significantly more from threats, abuse and harassment based on their sex, so they are likely to benefit most from these new legal protections.

“This will add to a range of general laws that can be used to prosecute aspects of misogynistic harassment and abuse.

“However, criminal law reform alone cannot eliminate abuse against women and girls, or the attitudes which perpetuate it; men must play an active role in identifying, challenging and changing the misogynistic and negative attitudes and behaviours that underpin the abuse of, and violence against, women and girls.”