ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the idea – common to hate speech ideas generally and to the work of Peter Waldron – that it is an easy and practical task to distinguish between the speech acts of oppressors and the humiliation suffered by the oppressed. The book explores counterarguments: that US, EU, and UK law sets up different binaries, not the oppressed versus the privileged, but two groups of people either of whom might suffer discrimination. What about those with bogus claims of suffering? And what about the problem of disparate power, i.e. that even fascists are able to cloak themselves as victims and insist that they are representing subaltern classes. The chapter explores three legal cases to show that these doubts are not fanciful, the cases of Fraser v UCU (did a Jewish person suffer harassment when his union debated anti-Israel policies?), Forstater v CGD Europe (is trans-exclusionary belief protected under the Equality Act?) and Redfearn v UK (in which the Court of Human Rights upheld the rights of a support of the British National Party, finding that anti-fascists were infringing on his free speech).
