A Fake News Headline About a Woman Being “Arrested” for Transphobia is Making the Rounds and Oh Boy…

Here’s something that probably almost everyone on planet Earth knows: being transphobic is not illegal. Saying transphobic things is not illegal. In fact, being an utterly heinous TERF is not even slightly illegal in most places in this world of ours.

So why, pray tell, is a fake story about a TERF facing a three-year prison sentence making the rounds this morning?

Well, as always, it’s complicated.

How embarassing for @nypost to write an article where every fact given in the title is a lie. Tonje Gjevjon is not an actress, is not being investigated for saying men can’t be lesbians and is not facing up to 3 years in prison. This is fake news. An entirely fabricated story. pic.twitter.com/FXQIwX3kZJ

— Aleksander (@Aleksander_soer) December 18, 2022

Here’s what happened: this November, Norwegian shitposter Tonje Gjevjon made some transphobic remarks about trans activist Christine Jentoft. They were the usual TERF talking points, and it wasn’t the first time Gjevjon went on record expressing her transphobic views.

The New York Post article, however, claims that Gjevjon is now under investigation for her remarks, per Norway’s hate speech laws. But there’s much more to the story.

In fact, she has admitted to knowingly repeating verbatim from an earlier case on hatespeech where someone was given probation for publically harassing a trans woman by calling her things like a perverted male pig and fetishist, just for being transgender (from norwegian news): pic.twitter.com/BDwmN6To8L

— Aleksander (@Aleksander_soer) December 18, 2022

Gjevjon apparently has been “trying” to get arrested as a way to “call attention” to what she sees as the problem of treating trans people like human beings. In her effort to create a media sh*tstorm, she referenced an earlier case where a man who directly threatened a trans woman was tried for hate speech. But Gjevjon herself is only in danger of being prosecuted because she’s trying to be.

In a Facebook post, Christine Jentoft explained the situation in full.

“Tonje Gjevjon is an individual who has dedicated 5 years of her life to spreading lies and hatred against trans people,” Jentoft wrote. “From her time as a conspiracy columnist in Dagbladet from 2017, her transphobic and racist caricatures of specific trans women and trans people as a group, her website to reach young trans children (tryggigkroppen.com) to her decades of established organizations and networks to oppose trans people and harassing attacks on people.”

Jentoft wants the police to drop the case against Gjevjon because as it stands, the case is part of Gjevjon’s performance art crusade against trans people.

Jeg ønsker at Politiet dropper saken mot Tonje Gjevjon.https://t.co/Em2f4TXx7j

— Christine, not CIStine 🪨 (@CJentoft) December 15, 2022

She wouldn’t be in any danger if she hadn’t alerted the police to her own hate speech—which really tells you everything you need to know.

Tonje Gjevjon has been trying to get arrested for over a year, and calls this her new art project. As a part of this project she has been vicously harrassing trans people and tagging the police, trans activists and politicians and asking us to take her to court.

— Aleksander (@Aleksander_soer) December 18, 2022

Trans people, on the other hand, can barely exist visibly without being threatened, harrassed, or made the subject of a campaign of hatred and lies.

Tonje Gjevjon has been trying to get arrested for over a year, and calls this her new art project. As a part of this project she has been vicously harrassing trans people and tagging the police, trans activists and politicians and asking us to take her to court.

— Aleksander (@Aleksander_soer) December 18, 2022